UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


UWIVKKSITY  of 
AT 
i-OS  ANGELES 

UHRARY 


Cljc  UiurraiBc  literature 


IN   THE  WILDERNESS 


BY 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER 


WITH  A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 


BOSTON      NEW  YORK      CHICAGO      SAN   FRANCISCO 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


14  36  If) 


CONTENTS 

M0 

How  I  KILLED  A  BEAK 1 

LOST  IN  THE  WOODS „ 11 

A  FIGHT  WITH  A  TKOUT t,    ,    .    23 

A-HUNT1NG    OF    THK    DEER 31 

A  CHARACTER  STUDY   .    , 48 

CAMPING  OUT    .    , 74 

A  WILDERNESS  ROMANCE 88 

WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE  CALL  PLEASURE 101 

How  SPRING  CAME  IN  NKW  ENGLAND 118 


COPYRIGHT,  1878,  BY  CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER 

COPYRIGHT,  I9OS,  BY  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 

COPYRIGHT,  IQO6  AND  I92O,  BY  SUSAN  LEE  WARNER 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


1V)t  l&ibersibt  flttas 

CAMBRIDGE   .  MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED  IN  THE  U.S.A. 


F 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER 

BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

LIKE  Mr.  Aldrich,  who  played  with  his  boyhood  in  Tkd 
Story  of  a  Bad  Boy,  Mr.  Warner  has  treated  himself  as  a 
sort  of  third  person  in  Being  a  Boy,  the  scenes  of  which 
are  laid  in  a  primitive  Massachusetts  country  neighborhood. 
The  place  which  stood  for  its  portrait  in  the  book  is  Charle- 
mont,  near  the  eastern  opening  of  the  Hoosac  tunnel.  Here 
Mr.  Warner  spent  his  boyhood,  removing  to  the  place,  when 
his  father  died,  from  Plainfield,  in  the  same  State,  where  he 
was  born  September  12,  1829.  He  was  five  years  old  when 
he  was  taken  to  Charlemont,  and  he  remained  there  eight 
years,  and  then  removed  to  Cazenovia,  N.  Y.  His  guardian 
intended  him  for  business  life,  and  placed  him  after  his 
school  days  as  clerk  in  a  store,  but  his  intellectual  ambition 
was  strong,  and  against  all  adverse  fates  he  secured  a  col- 
legiate education  at  Hamilton  College,  where  he  graduated 
in  1851.  His  college  many  years  later  conferred  on  him 
the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Letters. 

When  he  was  in  college  he  showed  his  bent  for  literature 
by  contributing  to  the  magazines  of  the  day,  and  shortly 
after  graduating  compiled  a  Book  of  Eloquence.  For  the 
next  half  dozen  years  he  was  busy  establishing  himself  in 
life,  choosing  the  law  at  first  as  his  profession,  but  really 
practicing  the  various  pursuits  which  should  finally  qualify 
him  for  his  predestined  vocation  as  a  man  of  letters.  He 
spent  two  years  in  frontier  life  with  a  surveying  party  ic 
Missouri,  mainly  to  secure  a  more  robust  condition  of  body  ; 
he  lectured,  did  hack  work,  wrote  letters  to  journals,  looked 
wistfully  at  public  life  and  oratory,  opened  a  law  office  id 
Chicago,  and  took  what  legal  business  he  could  find. 


IV  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

It  was  while  he  was  there  living  by  miscellaneous  ven- 
tures that  J.  R.  Hawley,  formerly  Senator  from  Connecti- 
cut, was  attracted  by  the  letters  which  Mr.  Warner  was  con- 
tributing to  his  paper,  the  Hartford  Press,  and  invited  hii» 
correspondent  to  remove  to  Hartford  and  become  assistant 
editor  of  the  paper.  This  was  shortly  before  the  opening 
of  the  war  for  the  Union.  When  Mr.  Hawley  entered  the 
army,  Mr.  Warner  became  editor  in  chief ;  and  when  the 
Press  became  merged  in  the  older  and  more  substantial 
Courant,  he  became  one  of  the  proprietors  and  editors  of 
that  paper. 

In  that  position  he  remained  until  his  death,  althougL 
iu  his  last  years  he  was  relieved  from  much  of  the  office 
work  of  an  editor.  It  was  in  connection  with  his  journal- 
istic duties  that  his  first  real  stroke  in  literature  was  made 
He  was  busy  with  the  political  discussions  in  which  the  press 
was  involved,  and  most  of  his  writing  was  of  this  sort.  But 
his  morning  recreation  in  his  garden  suggested  to  him  the 
relief  of  writing  playful  sketches  for  his  paper,  drawn  from 
this  occupation,  and  the  popularity  attending  them  led  to 
a  collection  of  the  sketches  in  the  well-known  volume  My 
Summer  in  a  Garden. 

In  1868  Mr.  Warner  went  to  Europe  for  a  year  and 
turned  his  travel-experience  into  sketches  which  were  gath- 
ered into  Saunterings.  This  was  the  beginning  of  his  more 
distinctly  literary  life.  He  found  his  pleasure  as  well  as  his 
recuperation  thereafter  chiefly  in  rambling  and  in  noting 
men  and  things.  The  more  distinctive  of  his  books  cf  travel 
growing  out  of  this  habit  were  Baddeck  and  That  Sort  oj 
Thing,  which  is  a  humorous  sketch  of  a  journey  in  Nova 
Scotia  and  among  the  scenes  of  Longfellow's  Evangeline ; 
books  of  eastern  travel,  My  Winter  on  the  Nile  and  In  th( 
Levant;  rambles  chiefly  in  the  Spanish  peninsula  undel 
the  name  A  Roundabout  Journey,  and  a  number  of  papers 
relating  to  American  life  and  scenery  gathered  into  the  two 
volumes  Studies  in  the  South  and  West  and  Our  Italy* 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  V 

a  warm  eulogy  of  southern  California.  A  genuine  love  of 
nature  bore  rich  fruit  in  the  Adirondack  sketches  In  the 
Wilderness,  which  form  the  contents  of  this  present 
rolume. 

By  a  natural  transfer  of  his  own  habit  into  a  more  purely 
literary  expression,  Mr.  Warner  wrote  a  book,  half  story, 
half  travel,  entitled  Their  Pilgrimage,  which  carried  sev- 
eral characters  from  one  watering-place  in  America  to  an- 
other, enabling  him  thus  to  sketch  manners  and  make 
observations  in  a  light,  satiric  vein,  on  some  phases  of 
American  life.  This  venture  it  was  that  led  him  proba- 
bly into  the  more  positive  field  of  fictitious  literature,  and 
he  produced  A  Little  Journey  in  the  World,  which,  under 
the  guise  of  stoiy,  was  really  a  serious  inquiry  into  the 
tendencies  of  social  life  when  affected  strongly  by  the  in- 
sidious influence  of  wealth,  especially  newly-gotten  wealth. 
The  publication  of  this  novel  led  to  the  writing  of  two 
other  novels,  The  Golden  House  and  That  Fortune,  pub- 
lished at  intervals  of  a  few  years.  These  novels  carried 
forward  some  of  the  inquiries  started  in  A  Little  Journey 
in  the  World,  and  the  reappearance  of  certain  characters, 
with  a  further  delineation  of  their  experience,  gives  the  three 
books  something  of  the  form  of  a  trilogy. 

For  several  years  Mr.  Warner  held  an  editorial  position 
on  Harper's  Monthly,  and  many  of  his  contributions  were 
made  to  that  magazine.  The  light,  suggestive  essay,  best 
illustrated  by  his  Backlog  Studies,  is  perhaps  the  form  of 
literature  with  which  he  is  most  identified,  but  the  serious 
side  of  his  nature  is  never  held  distinct  from  the  humorous, 
as  the  vein  of  humor  also  runs  through  his  more  solid  work. 
His  interest  in  literature  was  always  very  strong,  and  led 
him  into  the  delivery  of  some  forcible  addresses  at  college 
anniversaries  and  into  the  editorship  of  the  American  Men 
of  Letters  series,  to  which  he  contributed  the  volume  on 
Washington  Irving,  who  was  his  first  great  admiration  in 
modern  literature.  He  also  conducted,  a?  editor  in  chief. 


vi  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

the  extensive  work  entitled  Library  of  the  World's  Best 
Literature.  His  interest  in  literature  and  travel  was  not 
that  of  a  dilettante.  His  humor  is  scarcely  more  promi- 
nent than  his  earnest  though tfulness,  and  he  gave  practical 
expression  to  his  thought  in  the  part  which  he  took  in  pub- 
lic affairs  in  Hartford  and  in  the  moving  question  of  prison 
reform. 

Mr.  Warner  died  in  Hartford,  Conn.,  October  20S 1900 


HOW  I  KILLED  A  BEAR 


So  many  conflicting  accounts  have  appeared  about 
my  casual  encounter  with  an  Adirondack  bear  last 
summer,  that  in  justice  to  the  public,  to  myself,  and 
to  the  bear,  it  is  necessary  to  make  a  plain  statement 
of  the  facts.  Besides,  it  is  so  seldom  I  have  occasion 
to  kill  a  bear,  that  the  celebration  of  the  exploit  may 
be  excused. 

The  encounter  was  unpremeditated  on  both  sides. 
I  was  not  hunting  for  a  bear,  and  I  have  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  a  bear  was  looking  for  me.  The  fact  is, 
that  we  were  both  out  blackberrying,  and  met  by 
chance,  —  the  usual  way.  There  is  among  the  Adiron- 
dack visitors  always  a  great  deal  of  conversation  about 
bears,  —  a  general  expression  of  the  wish  to  see  one 
in  the  woods,  and  much  speculation  as  to  how  a  person 
would  act  if  he  or  she  chanced  to  meet  one.  But 
bears  are  scarce  and  timid,  and  appear  only  to  a 
favored  few. 

It  was  a  warm  day  in  August,  just  the  sort  of  day 
•when  an  adventure  of  any  kind  seemed  impossible^ 
But  it  occurred  to  the  housekeepers  at  our  cottage  — 
there  were  four  of  them  —  to  send  me  to  the  clearing, 
on  the  mountain  back  of  the  house,  to  pick  blackber- 
ries. It  was  rather  a  series  of  small  clearings,  run-' 
ning  up  into  the  forest,  much  overgrown  with  bushes 
and  briers,  and  not  unromantic.  Cows  pastured  there, 


2  BOW  I  KILLED  A  BEAR 

penetrating  through  the  leafy  passages  from  one  open- 
ing to  another,  and  browsing  among  the  bushes.  I 
was  kindly  furnished  with  a  six-quart  pail,  and  told 
not  to  be  gone  long. 

Not  from  any  predatory  instinct,  but  to  save  appear- 
ances, I  took  a  gun.  It  adds  to  the  manly  aspect  of  a 
person  with  a  tin  pail  if  he  also  carries  a  gun.  It  was 
possible  I  might  start  up  a  partridge ;  though  how  I 
was  to  hit  him,  if  he  started  up  instead  of  standing 
still,  puzzled  me.  Many  people  use  a  shot-gun  for 
partridges.  I  prefer  the  rifle :  it  makes  a  clean  job 
of  death,  and  does  not  prematurely  stuff  the  bird  with 
globules  of  lead.  The  rifle  was  a  Sharp's,  carrying  a 
ball  cartridge  (ten  to  the  pound),  —  an  excellent  wea- 
pon belonging  to  a  friend  of  mine,  who  had  intended, 
for  a  good  many  years  back,  to  kill  a  deer  with  it.  He 
could  hit  a  tree  with  it  —  if  the  wind  did  not  blow, 
and  the  atmosphere  was  just  right,  and  the  tree  was 
not  too  far  off  —  nearly  every  time.  Of  course,  the 
tree  must  have  some  size.  Needless  to  say  that  I  was 
at  that  time  no  sportsman.  Years  ago  I  killed  a  robin 
under  the  most  humiliating  circumstances.  The  bird 
was  in  a  low  cherry-tree.  I  loaded  a  big  shot-gun 
pretty  full,  crept  up  under  the  tree,  rested  the  gun  on 
the  fence,  with  the  muzzle  more  than  ten  feet  from 
the  bird,  shut  both  eyes,  and  pulled  the  trigger. 
When  I  got  up  to  see  what  had  happened,  the  robin 
was  scattered  about  under  the  tree  in  more  than  a 
thousand  pieces,  no  one  of  which  was  big  enough  to 
enable  a  naturalist  to  decide  from  it  to  what  species  it 
belonged.  This  disgusted  me  with  the  life  of  a  sports- 
man. I  mention  the  incident  to  show,  that,  although 
I  went  blackberrying  armed,  there  was  not  much  in- 
equality between  me  and  the  bear. 


HOW  I  KILLED  A  SEAR  3 

In  this  blackberry-patch  bears  Lad  been  seen.  The 
summer  before,  our  colored  cook,  accompanied  by  a 
little  girl  of  the  vicinage,  was  picking  berries  there 
one  day,  when  a  bear  came  out  of  the  woods,  and 
walked  towards  them.  The  girl  took  to  her  heels,  and 
escaped.  Aunt  Chloe  was  paralyzed  with  terror.  In- 
stead of  attempting  to  run,  she  sat  down  on  the 
ground  where  she  was  standing,  and  began  to  weep 
and  scream,  giving  herself  up  for  lost.  The  bear  was 
bewildered  by  this  conduct.  He  approached  and 
looked  at  her ;  he  walked  around  and  surveyed  her. 
Probably  he  had  never  seen  a  colored  person  before, 
and  did  not  know  whether  she  would  agree  with  him : 
at  any  rate,  after  watching  her  a  few  moments,  he 
turned  about,  and  went  into  the  forest.  This  is  an 
authentic  instance  of  the  delicate  consideration  of  a 
bear,  and  is  much  more  remarkable  than  the  forbear* 
ance  towards  the  African  slave  of  the  well-known  lion, 
because  the  bear  had  no  thorn  in  his  foot. 

When  I  had  climbed  the  hill,  I  set  up  my  rifle 
against  a  tree,  and  began  picking  berries,  lured  on 
from  bush  to  bush  by  the  black  gleam  of  fruit  (that 
always  promises  more  in  the  distance  than  it  realizes 
when  you  reach  it)  ;  penetrating  farther  and  farther, 
through  leaf-shaded  cow-paths  flecked  with  sunlight, 
into  clearing  after  clearing.  I  could  hear  on  all  sides 
the  tinkle  of  bells,  the  cracking  of  sticks,  and  the 
stamping  of  cattle  that  were  taking  refuge  in  the 
thicket  from  the  flies.  Occasionally,  as  I  broke 
through  a  covert,  I  encountered  a  meek  cow,  who 
stared  at  me  stupidly  for  a  second,  and  then  shambled 
off  into  the  brush.  I  became  accustomed  to  this  dumb 
society,  and  picked  on  in  silence,  attributing  all  the 
Wood  noises  to  the  cattle,  thinking  nothing  of  any 


4  HOW  2  KILLED   A  BEAR 

real  bear.  In  point  of  fact,  however,  I  was  thinking 
all  the  time  of  a  nice  romantic  bear,  and,  as  I  picked, 
was  composing  a  story  about  a  generous  she-bear  who 
had  lost  her  cub,  and  who  seized  a  small  girl  in  this 
very  wood,  carried  her  tenderly  off  to  a  cave,  and 
brought  her  up  on  bear's  milk  and  honey.  When  the 
girl  got  big  enough  to  run  away,  moved  by  her  in- 
herited instincts,  she  escaped,  and  came  into  the  valley 
to  her  father's  house  (this  part  of  the  story  was  to  be 
worked  out,  so  that  the  child  would  know  her  father 
by  some  family  resemblance,  and  have  some  language 
in  which  to  address  him),  and  told  him  where  the  bear 
lived.  The  father  took  his  gun,  and,  guided  by  the 
unfeeling  daughter,  went  into  the  woods  and  shot  the 
bear,  who  never  made  any  resistance,  and  only,  when 
dying,  turned  reproachful  eyes  upon  her  murderer. 
The  moral  of  the  tale  was  to  be  kindness  to  animals. 

I  was  in  the  midst  of  this  tale,  when  I  happened  to 
look  some  rods  away  to  the  other  edge  of  the  clearing, 
and  there  was  a  bear  !  He  was  standing  on  his  hind- 
legs,  and  doing  just  what  I  was  doing,  — picking 
blackberries.  With  one  paw  he  bent  down  the  bush, 
while  with  the  other  he  clawed  the  berries  into  his 
mouth,  —  green  ones  and  all.  To  say  that  I  was  as- 
tonished is  inside  the  mark.  I  suddenly  discovered 
that  I  didn't  want  to  see  a  bear,  after  all.  At  about 
the  same  moment  the  bear  saw  me,  stopped  eating 
berries,  and  regarded  me  with  a  glad  surprise.  It  is 
all  very  well  to  imagine  what  you  would  do  under  sucb 
circumstances.  Probably  you  would  n't  do  it :  I  did  n't< 
The  bear  dropped  down  on  his  fore-feet,  and  came 
slowly  towards  me.  Climbing  a  tree  was  of  no  use, 
with  so  good  a  climber  in  the  rear.  If  I  started  to 
?un,  I  had  no  doubt  the  bear  would  give  chase ;  and 


HOW  I  KILLED  A  BEAR  5 

although  a  bear  cannot  run  down  hill  as  fast  as  he 
can  run  up  hill,  yet  I  felt  that  he  could  get  over  this 
rough,  brush-tangled  ground  faster  than  I  could. 

The  bear  was  approaching.  It  suddenly  occurred 
to  me  how  I  could  divert  his  mind  until  I  could  fall 
back  upon  my  military  base.  My  pail  was  nearly  full 
of  excellent  berries,  —  much  better  than  the  bear 
could  pick  himself.  I  put  the  pail  on  the  ground,  and 
slowly  backed  away  from  it,  keeping  my  eye,  as  beast- 
tamers  do,  on  the  bear.  The  ruse  succeeded. 

The  bear  came  up  to  the  berries,  and  stopped.  Not 
accustomed  to  eat  out  of  a  pail,  he  tipped  it  over,  and 
nosed  about  in  the  fruit,  "  gorming  "  (if  there  is  sueh 
a  word)  it  down,  mixed  with  leaves  and  dirt,  like  a 
pig.  The  bear  is  a  worse  feeder  than  the  pig.  When- 
ever he  disturbs  a  maple-sugar  camp  in  the  spring,  he 
always  upsets  the  buckets  of  sirup,  and  tramples 
round  in  the  sticky  sweets,  wasting  more  than  he  eats. 
The  bear's  manners  are  thoroughly  disagreeable. 

As  soon  as  my  enemy's  head  was  down,  I  started 
and  ran.  Somewhat  out  of  breath,  and  shaky,  I 
reached  my  faithful  rifle.  It  was  not  a  moment  too 
soon.  I  heard  the  bear  crashing  through  the  brush 
after  me.  Enraged  at  my  duplicity,  he  was  now  com- 
ing on  with  blood  in  his  eye.  I  felt  that  the  time  of 
one  of  us  was  probably  short.  The  rapidity  of  thought 
at  such  moments  of  peril  is  well  known.  I  thought 
an  octavo  volume,  had  it  illustrated  and  published,  sold 
fifty  thousand  copies,  and  went  to  Europe  on  the  pro 
ceeds,  while  that  bear  was  loping  across  the  clearing 
As  I  was  cocking  the  gun,  I  made  a  hasty  and  unsatis- 
factory review  of  my  whole  life.  I  noted  that,  even  in 
such  a  compulsory  review,  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
think  of  any  good  thing  you  have  done.  The  sina 


6  HOW  I  KILLED  A  BEAR 

come  out  uncommonly  strong.  I  recollected  a  news- 
paper subscription  1  had  delayed  paying  years  and 
years  ago,  until  both  editor  and  newspaper  v/ere  dead, 
and  which  now  never  could  be  paid  to  all  eternity. 

The  bear  was  coming  on. 

I  tried  to  remember  what  I  had  read  about  encoun* 
ters  with  bears.  I  could  n't  recall  an  instance  in 
which  a  man  had  run  away  from  a  bear  in  the  woods 
and  escaped,  although  I  recalled  plenty  where  the  bear 
had  run  from  the  man  and  got  off.  I  tried  to  think 
what  is  the  best  way  to  kill  a  bear  with  a  gun,  when  you 
are  not  near  enough  to  club  him  with  the  stock.  My 
first  thought  was  to  fire  at  his  head ;  to  plant  the  ball 
between  his  eyes ;  but  this  is  a  dangerous  experiment. 
The  bear's  brain  is  very  small ;  and  unless  yoi  hit 
that,  the  bear  does  not  mind  a  bullet  in  his  head ;  that 
is,  not  at  the  time.  I  remembered  that  the  instant 
death  of  the  bear  would  follow  a  bullet  planted  just 
back  of  his  fore-leg,  and  sent  into  his  heart.  This 
spot  is  also  difficult  to  reach,  unless  the  bear  stands 
off,  side  towards  you,  like  a  target.  I  finally  deter- 
mined to  fire  at  him  generally. 

The  bear  was  coming  on. 

The  contest  seemed  to  me  very  different  from  any- 
thing at  Creedmoor.  I  had  carefully  read  the  reports 
of  the  shooting  there  ;  but  it  was  not  easy  to  apply 
the  experience  I  had  thus  acquired.  I  hesitated 
whether  I  had  better  fire  lying  on  my  stomach ;  or 
lying  on  my  back,  and  resting  the  gun  on  my  toes. 
But  in  neither  position,  I  reflected,  could  I  see  the 
bear  until  he  was  upon  me.  The  range  was  too  short ; 
and  the  bear  would  n't  wait  for  me  to  examine  the 
thermometer,  and  note  the  direction  of  the  wind. 
Trial  of  the  Creedmoor  method,  therefore,  had  to  be 


HOW  I  KILLED  A   BEAR  7 

abandoned ;  and  I  bitterly  regretted  that  I  had  not 
read  more  accounts  of  offhand  shooting. 

For  the  bear  was  coming  on. 

I  tried  to  fix  my  last  thoughts  upon  my  family.  As 
my  family  is  small,  this  was  not  difficult.  Dread  of 
displeasing  my  wife,  or  hurting  her  feelings,  was  up- 
permost in  my  mind.  What  would  be  her  anxiety  as 
hour  after  hour  passed  on,  and  I  did  not  return ! 
What  would  the  rest  of  the  household  think  as  ths 
afternoon  passed,  and  no  blackberries  came  !  What 
would  be  my  wife's  mortification  when  the  news  was 
brought  that  her  husband  had  been  eaten  by  a  bear 
I  cannot  imagine  any  thing  more  ignominious  than  to 
Lave  a  husband  eaten  by  a  bear.  And  this  was  not 
my  only  anxiety.  The  mind  at  such  times  is  not 
under  control.  With  the  gravest  fears  the  most  whim- 
sical ideas  will  occur.  I  looked  beyond  the  mourning 
friends,  and  thought  what  kind  of  an  epitaph  they 
would  be  compelled  to  put  upon  the  stone.  Some- 
thing like  this :  — 

HERE   LIE  THE   REMAINS 
OF 

EATEN    BY    A    BEAR 

Aug.  20,  1877. 

It  is  a  very  unheroic  and  even  disagreeable  epitaph. 
That  "  eaten  by  a  bear  "  is  intolerable.  It  is  gro- 
tesque. And  then  I  thought  what  an  inadequate  lan- 
guage the  English  is  for  compact  expression.  It  would 
not  answer  to  put  upon  the  stone  simply  "  eaten  ; "  for 
that  is  indefinite,  and  requires  explanation :  it  might 
mean  eaten  by  a  cannibal.  This  difficulty  could  not. 
occur  in  the  German,  where  essen  signifies  the  act  of 


8  HOW  I  KILLED  A   BEAR 

feeding  by  a  man,  smdfressen  by  a  beast.     How  aim' 
pie  the  thing  would  be  in  German !  — 

HIEB   LIEGT 
HOCHWOHLGEBOBEN 

HEBB   — , 

GEFBESSEN 

Aug.  20,  1877. 

That  explains  itself.  The  well-born  one  was  eaten 
by  a  beast,  and  presumably  by  a  bear,  —  an  animal 
that  has  a  bad  reputation  since  the  days  of  Elisha. 

The  bear  was  coming  on ;  he  had,  in  fact,  come  on. 
I  judged  that  he  could  see  the  whites  of  my  eyes.  AH 
my  subsequent  reflections  were  confused.  I  raised 
the  gun,  covered  the  bear's  breast  with  the  sight,  and 
let  drive.  Then  I  turned,  and  ran  like  a  deer.  I 
did  not  hear  the  bear  pursuing.  I  looked  back.  The 
bear  had  stopped.  He  was  lying  down.  I  then  re- 
membered that  the  best  thing  to  do  after  having  fired 
your  gun  is  to  reload  it.  I  slipped  in  a  charge,  keep- 
ing my  eyes  on  the  bear.  He  never  stirred.  I  walked 
back  suspiciously.  There  was  a  quiver  in  the  hind- 
legs,  but  no  other  motion.  Still  he  might  be  sham- 
ming :  bears  often  sham.  To  make  sure,  I  approached, 
and  put  a  ball  into  his  head.  He  didn't  mind  it  now: 
he  minded  nothing.  Death  had  come  to  him  with 
a  merciful  suddenness.  He  was  calm  in  death.  In 
order  that  he  might  remain  so,  I  blew  his  brains  out, 
and  then  started  for  home.  I  had  killed  a  bear! 

Notwithstanding  my  excitement,  I  managed  to 
saunter  into  the  house  with  an  unconcerned  air.  There 
was  a  chorus  of  voices :  — 

"  Where  are  your  blackberries  ?  " 


HOW  I  KILLED  A   BEAR  9 

"  Why  were  you  gone  so  long  ?  " 

"  Where  's  your  pail  ?  " 

"  I  left  the  pail." 

"  Left  the  pail !     What  for  ?  " 

"  A  bear  wanted  it." 

**  Oh,  nonsense !  " 

«*  Well,  the  last  I  saw  of  it,  a  bear  had  it." 

"  Oh,  come  !     You  did  n't  really  see  a  bear?  M 

**  Yes,  but  I  did  really  see  a  real  bear." 

"Did  he  run?" 

"  Yes  ;  he  ran  after  me." 

"I  don't  believe  a  word  of  it.    What  did  you  do?1* 

"  Oh !  nothing  particular  —  except  kill  the  bear." 

Cries  of  "  Gammon  ! "  "  Don't  believe  it  1  " 
*>  Where  's  the  bear  ?  " 

"  If  you  want  to  see  the  bear,  you  must  go  up  into 
the  woods.  I  could  n't  bring  him  down  alone." 

Having  satisfied  the  household  that  something  ex- 
traordinary had  occurred,  an*3  excited  the  posthumous 
fear  of  some  of  them  for  nfy  <wm  safety,  I  went  down 
into  the  valley  to  get  help.  The  great  bear-hunter, 
who  keeps  one  of  the  summer  boarding-houses,  re- 
ceived my  story  with  a  smile  of  incredulity ;  and  the 
incredulity  spread  to  the  other  inhabitants  and  to  the 
boarders  as  soon  as  the  story  was  known.  However, 
as  I  insisted  in  all  soberness,  and  offered  to  lead  them 
fco  the  bear,  a  party  of  forty  or  fifty  people  at  last 
started  off  with  me  to  bring  the  bear  in.  Nobody  be- 
lieved there  was  any  bear  in  the  case ;  but  everybody 
•who  could  get  a  gun  carried  one  ;  and  we  went  into 
the  woods  armed  with  guns,  pistols,  pitchforks,  and 
Sticks,  against  all  contingencies  or  surprises,  —  a  crowd 
made  up  mostly  of  scoffers  and  jeerers. 

But  when  I  led  the  way  to  the  fatal  spot,  and 


10  HOW  I  KILLED  A   BEAR 

pointed  out  the  bear,  lying  peacefully  wrapped  in  hia 
own  skin,  something  like  terror  seized  the  boarders, 
and  genuine  excitement  the  natives.  It  was  a  no- 
mistake  bear,  by  George !  and  the  hero  of  the  fight  — 
well,  I  will  not  insist  upon  that.  But  what  a  proces- 
sion that  was,  carrying  the  bear  home !  and  what  a 
congregation  was  speedily  gathered  in  the  valley  to 
see  the  bear  !  Our  best  preacher  up  there  never  drew 
anything  like  it  on  Sunday. 

And  I  must  say  that  my  particular  friends,  who 
were  sportsmen,  behaved  very  well,  on  the  whole. 
They  did  n't  deny  that  it  was  a  bear,  although  they 
said  it  was  small  for  a  bear.  Mr.  Deane,  who  is 
equally  good  with  a  rifle  and  a  rod,  admitted  that  it 
was  a  very  fair  shot.  He  is  probably  the  best  salmon- 
fisher  in  the  United  States,  and  he  is  an  equally  good 
hunter.  I  suppose  there  is  no  person  in  America  who 
is  more  desirous  to  kill  a  moose  than  he.  But  he 
needlessly  remarked,  after  he  had  examined  the  wound 
in  the  bear,  that  he  had  seen  that  kind  of  a  shot  made 
by  a  cow's  horn. 

This  sort  of  talk  affected  me  not.  When  I  went  to 
sleep  that  night,  my  last  delicious  thought  was,  "  I  've 
killed  a  bear  1 " 


LOST  IN  THE  WOODS 


IT  ought  to  be  said,  by  way  of  explanation,  that  my 
being  lost  in  the  woods  was  not  premeditated.  Noth- 
ing could  have  been  more  informal.  This  apology 
can  be  necessary  only  to  those  who  are  familiar  with 
the  Adirondack  literature.  Any  person  not  familiar 
with  it  would  see  the  absurdity  of  one  going  to  the 
Northern  Wilderness  with  the  deliberate  purpose  of 
writing  about  himself  as  a  lost  man.  It  may  be 
true  that  a  book  about  this  wild  tract  would  not  bo 
recognized  as  complete  without  a  lost-man  story  in  it ; 
since  it  is  almost  as  easy  for  a  stranger  to  get  lost  in 
the  Adirondacks  as  in  Boston.  I  merely  desire  to 
say  that  my  unimportant  adventure  is  not  narrated  in 
answer  to  the  popular  demand,  and  I  do  not  wish  to 
be  held  responsible  for  its  variation  from  the  typical 
character  of  such  experiences. 

We  had  been  in  camp  a  week,  on  the  Upper  Au« 
sable  Lake.  This  is  a  gem  —  emerald  or  turquoise  as 
the  light  changes  it  —  set  in  the  virgin  forest.  It  is 
not  a  large  body  of  water,  is  irregular  in  form,  and 
about  a  mile  and  a  half  in  length ;  but  in  the  sweep 
of  its  wooded  shores,  and  the  lovely  contour  of  the 
lofty  mountains  that  guard  it,  the  lake  is  probably  the 
most  charming  in  America.  Why  the  young  ladies 
and  gentlemen  who  camp  there  occasionally  vex  taa 


12  LOST  IN  THE  WOODS 

days  and  nights  with  hooting,  and  singing  sentimental 
songs,  is  a  mystery  even  to  the  laughing  loon. 

I  left  my  companions  there  one  Saturday  morning 
to  return  to  Keene  Valley,  intending  to  fish  down  the 
Ausable  River.  The  Upper  Lake  discharges  -itself 
into  the  Lower  by  a  brook  which  winds  through  a 
mile  and  a  half  of  swamp  and  woods.  Out  of  the  EortTt 
*nd  of  the  Lower  Lake,  which  is  a  huge  sink  iu  th « 
Eaountains,  and  mirrors  the  savage  precipices,  the 
Ausable  breaks  its  rocky  barriers,  and  flows  through  a 
wild  gorge,  several  miles,  to  the  valley  below.  Be- 
tween the  Lower  Lake  and  the  settlements  is  an  ex- 
tensive forest,  traversed  by  a  cart-path,  admirably 
constructed  of  loose  stones,  roots  of  trees,  decayed 
logs,  slippery  rocks,  and  mud.  The  gorge  of  the  river 
forms  its  western  boundary.  I  followed  this  carica- 
ture of  a  road  a  mile  or  more  ;  then  gave  my  luggajr^ 
to  the  guide  to  carry  home,  and  struck  off  through 
the  forest,  by  compass,  to  the  river.  I  promised  my- 
self an  exciting  scramble  down  this  little-frequenter! 
canon,  and  a  creel  full  of  trout.  There  was  no  diffi- 
culty in  finding  the  river,  or  in  descending  the  steep 
precipice  to  its  bed :  getting  into  a  scrape  is  usually 
the  easiest  part  of  it.  The  river  is  strewn  with  bowl- 
ders, big-  and  little,  through  which  the  amber  water 
.rushes  with  an  unceasing  thunderous  roar,  now  plung- 
ing down  in  white  falls,  then  swirling  round  in  dark 
pools.  The  day,  already  past  meridian,  was  delight- 
ful ;  at  least,  the  blue  strip  of  it  I  could  see  overhead. 

Better  pools  and  rapids  for  trout  never  were,  I 
thought,  as  I  concealed  myself  behind  a  bowlder,  and 
made  the  first  cast.  There  is  nothing  like  the  thrill 
of  expectation  over  the  first  throw  in  unfamiliar 
"vaters.  Fishing  is  like  gambling,  in  that  failure  only 


LOST  IN  THE  WOODS  ,  13 

excites  hope  of  a  fortunate  throw  next  time.  There 
was  no  rise  to  the  "leader  "  on  the  first  cast,  nor  on 
the  twenty-first;  and  I  cautiously  worked  my  way 
down  stream,  throwing  right  and  left.  When  I  had 
gone  half  a  mile,  my  opinion  of  the  character  of  the 
pools  was  unchanged:  never  were  there  such  places 
for  trout ;  but  the  trout  were  out  of  their  places. 
Perhaps  they  did  n't  care  for  the  fly  :  some  trout  seem 
to  be  so  unsophisticated  as  to  prefer  the  worm.  I 
replaced  the  fly  with  a  baited  hook :  the  worm 
squirmed ;  the  waters  rushed  and  roared ;  a  cloud 
sailed  across  the  blue  :  no  trout  rose  to  the  lonesome 
opportunity.  There  is  a  certain  companionship  in  the 
presence  of  trout,  especially  when  you  can  feel  them 
flopping  in  your  fish-basket ;  but  it  became  evidenfc 
that  there  were  no  trout  in  this  wilderness,  and  a 
sense  of  isolation  for  the  first  time  came  over  me. 
There  was  no  living  thing  near.  The  river  had  by 
this  time  entered  a  deeper  gorge  ;  walls  of  rocks  rose 
perpendicularly  on  either  side,  —  picturesque  rocks, 
painted  many  colors  by  the  oxide  of  iron.  It  was  not 
possible  to  climb  out  of  the  gorge  ;  it  was  impossible 
to  find  a  way  by  the  side  of  the  river ;  and  getting 
down  the  bed,  over  the  falls,  and  through  the  flumes, 
was  not  easy,  and  consumed  time. 

Was  that  thunder  ?  Very  likely.  But  thunder- 
showers  are  always  brewing  in  these  mountain-for- 
tresses, and  it  did  not  occur  to  me  that  there  was  any 
thing  personal  in  it.  Very  soon,  however,  the  hole 
in  the  sky  closed  in,  and  the  rain  dashed  down.  It 
seemed  a  providential  time  to  eat  my  luncheon ;  and 
I  took  shelter  under  a  scraggy  pine  that  had  rooted 
itself  in  the  edge  of  the  rocky  slope.  The  shower 
soon  passed,  and  I  continued  my  journey,  creeping 


14  LOST  IN  THE  WOODS 

over  the  slippery  rocks,  and  continuing  to  show  ray 
confidence  in  the  unresponsive  trout.  The  way  grew 
wider  and  more  grewsome.  The  thunder  began  again, 
rolling  along  over  the  tops  of  the  mountains,  and  re- 
verberating in  sharp  concussions  in  the  gorge :  the 
lightning  also  darted  down  into  the  darkening  pas- 
sage,  and  then  the  rain.  Every  enlightened  being 
even  if  he  is  in  a  fisherman's  dress  of  shirt  and  pan- 
taloons, hates  to  get  wet ;  and  I  ignominiously  crept 
under  the  edge  of  a  sloping  bowlder.  It  was  all  very 
well  at  first,  until  streams  of  water  began  to  crawl 
along  the  face  of  the  rock,  and  trickle  down  the  back 
of  my  neck.  This  was  refined  misery,  unheroic  and 
humiliating,  as  suffering  always  is  when  unaccom- 
panied by  resignation. 

A  longer  time  than  I  knew  was  consumed  in  this 
and  repeated  efforts  to  wait  for  the  slackening  and 
renewing  storm  to  pass  away.  In  the  intervals  of 
calm  I  still  fished,  and  even  descended  to  what  a 
sportsman  considers  incredible  baseness ;  I  put  a 
"  sinker  "  on  my  line.  It  is  the  practice  of  the  coun- 
try-folk, whose  only  object  is  to  get  fish,  to  use  a  good 
deal  of  bait,  sink  the  hook  to  the  bottom  of  the  pools, 
and  wait  the  slow  appetite  of  the  summer  trout.  I 
tried  this  also.  I  might  as  well  have  fished  in  a  pork- 
barrel.  It  is  true,  that,  in  one  deep,  black,  round 
pool,  I  lured  a  small  trout  from  the  bottom,  and  de- 
posited him  in  the  creel;  but  it  was  an  accident. 
Though  I  sat  there  in  the  awful  silence  (the  roar  of 
water  only  emphasized  the  stillness)  full  half  an  hour, 
I  was  not  encouraged  by  another  nibble.  Hope,  how- 
ever, did  not  die :  1  always  expected  to  find  the  tvout 
in  the  next  flume  ;  and  so  I  toiled  slowly  on,  uncon- 
scious of  the  passing  time.  At  each  turn  of  tb« 


LOST  IN  THE  WOODS  15 

stream  I  expected  to  see  the  end,  and  at  each  turn  I 
saw  a  long,  narrow  stretch  of  rocks  and  foaming 
water.  Climbing  out  of  the  ravine  was,  in  most 
places,  simply  impossible ;  and  I  began  to  look  with 
interest  for  a  slide,  where  bushes  rooted  in  the  scant 
earth  would  enable  me  to  scale  the  precipice.  I  did 
not  doubt  that  I  was  nearly  through  the  gorge.  I 
could  at  length  see  the  huge  form  of  the  Giant  of  the 
Valley,  scarred  with  avalanches,  at  the  end  of  the 
vista  ;  and  it  seemed  not  far  off.  But  it  kept  its  dis- 
tance, as  only  a  mountain  can,  while  I  stumbled  and 
slid  down  the  rocky  way.  The  rain  had  now  set  in 
with  persistence,  and  suddenly  I  became  aware  that  it 
was  growing  dark,  and  I  said  to  myself,  "  If  you  don't 
wish  to  spend  the  night  in  this  horrible  chasm,  you  'd 
better  escape  speedily."  Fortunately  I  reached  a 
place  where  the  face  of  the  precipice  was  bush-grown, 
and  with  considerable  labor  scrambled  up  it. 

Having  no  doubt  that  I  was  within  half  a  mile, 
perhaps  within  a  few  rods,  of  the  house  above  the 
entrance  of  the  gorge,  and  that,  in  any  event,  I  should 
fall  into  the  cart-path  in  a  few  minutes,  I  struck 
boldly  into  the  forest,  congratulating  myself  on 
having  escaped  out  of  the  river.  So  sure  was  I  of 
my  whereabouts,  that  I  did  not  note  the  bend  of  the 
river,  nor  look  at  my  compass.  The  one  trout  in  my 
basket  was  no  burden,  and  I  stepped  lightly  out. 

The  forest  was  of  hard-wood,  and  open,  except  for 
a  thick  undergrowth  of  moose-bush.  It  was  raining, 
—  in  fact,  it  had  been  raining,  more  or  less,  for  a 
month,  —  and  the  woods  were  soaked.  This  moose- 
bush  is  most  annoying  stuff  to  travel  through  in  a 
rain ;  for  the  broad  leaves  slap  one  in  the  face,  and 
sop  him  with  wet.  The  way  grew  every  moment 


16  LOST  IN  THE   WOODS 

more  dingy.  The  heavy  clouds  above  the  thick  foliage 
brought  night  on  prematurely.  It  was  decidedly 
premature  to  a  near-sighted  man,  whose  glasses  the 
rain  rendered  useless :  such  a  person  ought  to  be  at 
home  early.  On  leaving  the  river-bank  I  had  borne 
to  the  left,  so  as  to  be  sure  to  strike  either  the  clear- 
ing or  the  road,  and  not  wander  off  into  the  measure- 
less forest.  I  confidently  pursued  this  course,  and 
went  gayly  on  by  the  left  flank.  That  I  did  not 
come  to  any  opening  or  path,  only  showed  that  I  had 
slightly  mistaken  the  distance:  I  was  going  in  the 
right  direction. 

I  was  so  certain  of  this,  that  I  quickened  my  pace, 
and  got  up  with  alacrity  every  time  I  tumbled  down 
amid  the  slippery  leaves  and  catching  rootss  and 
hurried  on.  And  I  kept  to  the  left.  It  even  oc«  urred 
to  me  that  I  was  turning  to  the  left  so  much,  that  I 
might  come  back  to  the  river  again.  It  grew  more 
dusky,  and  rained  more  violently ;  but  there  was 
nothing  alarming  in  the  situation,  since  I  knew  exactly 
where  I  was.  It  was  a  little  mortifying  that  I  had 
miscalculated  the  distance  :  yet,  so  far  was  I  from 
feeling  any  uneasiness  about  this,  that  I  quickened  my 
pace  again,  and,  before  I  knew  it,  was  in  a  full  run  5 
that  is,  as  full  a  run  as  a  person  can  indulge  in  in  the 
dusk,  with  so  many  trees  in  the  way.  No  nervousness, 
but  simply  a  reasonable  desire  to  get  there.  I  desired 
to  look  upon  myself  as  the  person  "  not  lost,  but  gon€ 
before."  As  time  passed,  and  darkness  fell,  and  no 
clearing  or  road  appeared,  I  ran  a  little  faster.  It 
did  n't  seem  possible  that  the  people  had  moved,  or 
the  road  been  changed  ;  and  yet  I  was  sure  of  my 
direction.  I  went  on  with  an  energy  increased  by  the 
ridiculousness  of  the  situation,  the  danger  that  an 


LOST  IN  THE   WOODS  17 

experienced  woodsman  was  in  of  getting  home  late 
for  supper ;  the  lateness  of  the  meal  being  nothing  to 
the  gibes  of  the  uulost.  How  long  I  kept  this  course 
and  how  far  I  went  on,  I  do  not  know;  but  suddenly 
I  stumbled  against  an  ill-placed  tree,  and  sat  down  on 
the  soaked  ground,  a  trifle  out  of  breath.  It  then 
occured  to  me  that  I  had  better  verify  my  course  by 
the  compass.  There  was  scarcely  light  enough  to  dis- 
tinguish the  black  end  of  the  needle.  To  my  amaze- 
ment, the  compass,  which  was  made  near  Greenwich, 
was  wrong.  Allowing  for  the  natural  variation  of  the 
needle,  it  was  absurdly  wrong.  It  made  out  that  I 
was  going  south  when  I  was  going  north.  It  inti- 
mated, that,  instead  of  turning  to  the  left,  I  had  been 
making  a  circuit  to  the  right.  According  to  the  com- 
pass, the  Lord  only  knew  where  I  was. 

The  inclination  of  persons  in  the  woods  to  travel  in 
a  circle  is  unexplained.  I  suppose  it  arises  from  the 
sympathy  of  the  legs  with  the  brain.  Most  people 
reason  in  a  circle :  their  minds  go  round  and  round, 
always  in  the  same  track.  For  the  last  half-hour  I 
had  been  saying  over  a  sentence  that  started  itself : 
"  I  wonder  where  that  road  is !  "  I  had  said  it  over 
till  it  had  lost  all  meaning.  I  kept  going  round  on  it ; 
and  yet  I  could  not  believe  that  my  body  had  been 
travelling  in  a  circle.  Not  being  able  to  recognize 
any  tracts,  I  have  no  evidence  that  I  had  so  travelled, 
except  the  general  testimony  of  lost  men. 

The  compass  annoyed  me.  I've  known  experi 
enced  guides  utterly  discredit  it.  It  could  n't  be  that 
I  was  to  turn  about,  and  go  the  way  I  had  come. 
Nevertheless,  I  said  to  myself,  "You'd  better  keep 
a  cool  head,  my  boy,  or  you  are  in  for  a  night  of 
it.  Better  listen  to  science  than  to  spunk."  And  J 


18  LOST  IN  THE  WOODS 

resolved  to  heed  the  impartial  needle.  I  was  a  little 
weary  of  the  rough  tramping  :  but  it  was  necessary  to 
be  moving  ;  for,  with  wet  clothes  and  the  night  air, 
I  was  decidedly  chilly.  I  turned  towards  the  north, 
aad  slipped  and  stumbled  along.  A  more  uninviting 
forest  to  pass  the  night  in  I  never  saw.  Everything 
was  soaked.  If  I  became  exhausted,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  build  a  fire ;  and,  as  I  walked  on,  I 
could  n't  find  a  dry  bit  of  wood.  Even  if  a  little  punk 
were  discovered  in  a  rotten  log,  I  had  no  hatchet  to 
cut  fuel.  I  thought  it  all  over  calmly.  I  had  the 
visual  three  matches  in  my  pocket.  I  knew  exactly 
•what  would  happen  if  I  tried  to  build  a  fire.  The 
first  match  would  prove  to  be  wet.  The  second  match, 
when  struck,  would  shine  and  smell,  and  fizz  a  little 
And  then  go  out.  There  would  be  only  one  match 
left.  Death  would  ensue  if  it  failed.  I  should  get 
close  to  the  log,  crawl  under  my  hat,  strike  the  match, 
see  it  catch,  flicker,  almost  go  out  (the  reader  pain- 
fully excited  by  this  time),  blaze  up,  nearly  expire, 
and  finally  fire  the  punk,  —  thank  God  !  And  I  said 
to  myself,  "  The  public  don't  want  any  more  of  this 
thing :  it  is  played  out.  Either  have  a  box  of  matches, 
or  let  the  first  one  catch  fire." 

In  this  gloomy  mood  I  plunged  along.  The  proa= 
pect  was  cheerless  ;  for,  apart  from  the  comfort  that 
a  fire  would  give,  it  is  necessary,  at  night,  to  keep  off 
the  wild  beasts.  I  fancied  I  could  hear  the  tread  of 
the  stealthy  brutes  following  their  prey.  But  there 
was  one  source  of  profound  satisfaction,  —  the  cata- 
mount had  been  killed.  Mr.  Colvin,  the  triangulating 
surveyor  of  the  Adirondacks,  killed  him  in  his  last 
official  report  to  the  State.  Whether  he  despatched 
him  with  a  theodolite  or  &  barometer  does  not  matter ' 


LOST  IN  THE  WOODS  19 

te  is  officially  dead,  and  none  of  the  travellers  can 
kill  him  any  more.  Yet  he  has  served  them  a  good 
turn. 

I  knew  that  catamount  well.  One  night  when  we 
lay  in  the  bogs  of  the  South  Beaver  Meadow,  under  a 
canopy  of  mosquitoes,  the  serene  midnight  was  parted 
by  a  wild  and  human-like  cry  from  a  neighboring 
mountain.  "  That 's  a  cat,"  said  the  guide.  I  felt  in 
a  moment  that  it  was  the  voice  of  "  modern  cultchah." 
"  Modern  culture,"  says  Mr.  Joseph  Cook  in  a  most 
impressive  period,  —  "  modern  culture  is  a  child  cry- 
ing  in  the  wilderness,  and  with  no  voice  but  a  cry." 
That  describes  the  catamount  exactly.  The  next  day, 
when  we  ascended  the  mountain,  we  came  upon  the 
traces  of  this  brute,  —  a  spot  where  he  had  stood  and 
cried  in  the  night ;  and  I  confess  that  my  hair  rose 
with  the  consciousness  of  his  recent  presence,  as  it  is 
said  to  do  when  a  spirit  passes  by. 

Whatever  consolation  the  absence  of  catamount  in 
a  dark,  drenched,  and  howling  wilderness  can  impart, 
that  I  experienced ;  but  I  thought  what  a  satire  upon 
my  present  condition  was  modern  culture,  with  its 
plain  thinking  and  high  living  !  It  was  impossible  to 
get  much  satisfaction  out  of  the  real  and  the  ideal,  — 
the  me  and  the  not-me.  At  this  time  what  impressed 
me  most  was  the  absurdity  of  my  position  looked  at  in 
the  light  of  modern  civilization  and  all  my  advantages 
and  acquii-ements.  It  seemed  pitiful  that  society 
could  do  absolutely  nothing  for  me.  It  was,  in  fact, 
humiliating  to  reflect  that  it  would  now  be  profit- 
able to  exchange  all  my  possessions  for  the  woods  in- 
stinct  of  the  most  unlettered  guide.  I  began  to  doubt 
the  value  of  the  "  culture "  that  blunts  the  natural 
instincts. 


20  LOST  IN  THE  WOODS 

It  began  to  be  a  question  whether  I  could  hold  out 
to  walk  all  night ;  for  I  must  travel,  or  perish.  And 
now  I  imagined  that  a  spectre  was  walking  by  my 
side.  This  was  Famine.  To  be  sure,  I  had  only 
recently  eaten  a  hearty  luncheon :  but  the  pangs  of 
hunger  got  hold  on  me  when  I  thought  that  I  should 
have  no  supper,  no  breakfast ;  and,  as  the  procession 
of  unattainable  meals  stretched  before  me,  I  grew 
hungrier  and  hungrier.  I  could  feel  that  I  was  be- 
coming gaunt,  and  wasting  away :  already  I  seemed 
to  be  emaciated.  It  is  astonishing  how  speedily  a 
jocund,  well-conditioned  human  being  can  be  trans- 
formed into  a  spectacle  of  poverty  and  want.  Lose 
a  man  in  the  woods,  drench  him,  tear  his  pantaloons, 
get  his  imagination  running  on  his  lost  supper  and 
the  cheerful  fireside  that  is  expecting  him,  and  he  will 
become  haggard  in  an  hour.  I  am  not  dwelling  upon 
these  things  to  excite  the  reader's  sympathy,  but  only 
to  advise  him,  if  he  contemplates  an  adventure  of  this 
kind,  to  provide  himself  with  matches,  kindling-wood, 
something  more  to  eat  than  one  raw  trout,  and  not  to 
select  a  rainy  night  for  it. 

Nature  is  so  pitiless,  so  unresponsive,  to  a  person  in 
trouble  !  I  had  read  of  the  soothing  companionship 
of  the  forest,  the  pleasure  of  the  pathless  woods.  But 
I  thought,  as  I  stumbled  along  in  the  dismal  actuality, 
that  if  I  ever  got  out  of  it.  I  would  write  a  letter  to 
the  newspapers,  exposing  the  whole  thing.  There  is 
an  impassive,  stolid  brutality  about  the  woods  that 
has  never  been  enough  insisted  on.  I  tried  to  keep 
my  mind  fixed  upon  the  fact  of  man's  superiority  to 
Nature  ;  his  ability  to  dominate  and  outwit  her.  My 
situation  was  an  amusing  satire  on  this  theory.  I 
fancied  that  I  could  feel  a  sneer  in  the  woods  at  my 


LOST  IN  THE  WOODS  21 

detected  conceit.  There  was  something  personal  in 
it.  The  downpour  of  the  rain  and  the  slipperiness  of 
the  ground  were  elements  of  discomfort ;  but  there 
was,  besides  these,  a  kind  of  terror  in  the  very  charac- 
ter of  the  forest  itself.  I  think  this  arose  not  more 
from  its  immensity  than  from  the  kind  of  stolidity  to 
which  I  have  alluded.  It  seemed  to  me  that  it  would 
be  a  sort  of  relief  to  kick  the  trees.  I  don't  wonder 
that  the  bears  fall  to,  occasionally,  and  scratch  the 
bark  off  the  great  pines  and  maples,  tearing  it  angrily 
away.  One  must  have  some  vent  to  his  feelings.  It 
is  a  common  experience  of  people  lost  in  the  woods  to 
lose  their  heads  ;  and  even  the  woodsmen  themselves 
are  not  free  from  this  panic  when  some  accident  has 
thrown  them  out  of  their  reckoning.  Fright  unsettles 
the  judgment :  the  oppressive  silence  of  the  woods  is 
a  vacuum  in  which  the  mind  goes  astray.  It 's  a 
hollow  sham,  this  pantheism,  I  said  ;  being  "  one  with 
Nature "  is  all  humbug :  I  should  like  to  see  some- 
body. Man,  to  be  sure,  is  of  very  little  account,  and 
soon  gets  beyond  his  depth  ;  but  the  society  of  the 
least  human  being  is  better  than  this  gigantic  indiffer- 
ence. The  "  rapture  on  the  lonely  shore  "  is  agree- 
able only  when  you  know  you  can  at  any  moment  go 
home. 

I  had  now  given  up  all  expectation  of  finding  the 
road,  and  was  steering  my  way  as  well  as  I  could 
northward  towards  the  valley.  In  my  haste  I  made 
slow  progress.  Probably  the  distance  I  travelled  was 
short,  and  the  time  consumed  not  long  ;  but  I  seemed 
to  be  adding  mile  to  mile,  and  hour  to  hour.  I  had 
time  to  review  the  incidents  of  the  Russo-Turkish 
war,  and  to  forecast  the  entire  Eastern  question  ;  I 
outlined  the  characters  of  all  my  companions  left  in 


22  LOST  /A    THE 

camp,  and  sketched  in  a  sort  of  comedy  the  sym- 
pathetic and  disparaging  observations  they  would 
make  on  my  adventure  ;  I  repeated  something  like  a 
thousand  times,  without  contradiction,  u  What  a  fool 
you  were  to  leave  the  river  !  "  I  stopped  twenty  times, 
thinking  I  heard  its  loud  roar,  always  deceived  by  the 
wind  in  the  tree  tops ;  I  began  to  entertain  serious 
doubts  about  the  compass,  — when  suddenly  I  became 
aware  that  I  was  no  longer  on  level  ground  ;  I  was 
descending  a  slope  ;  I  was  actually  in  a  ravine.  In  a 
moment  more  I  was  in  a  brook  newly  formed  by  the 
rain.  "  Thank  Heaven  !  "  I  cried  :  "  this  I  shall  follow 
whatever  conscience  or  the  compass  says."  In  this 
region,  all  streams  go,  sooner  or  later,  into  the  val- 
ley. This  ravine,  this  stream,  no  doubt,  led  to  the 
river.  I  splashed  and  tumbled  along  down  it  in 
mud  and  water.  Down  hill  we  went  together,  the  fall 
showing  that  I  must  have  wandered  to  high  ground. 
When  I  guessed  that  I  must  be  close  to  the  river,  I 
suddenly  stepped  into  mud  up  to  my  ankles.  It  was 
the  road,  —  running,  of  course,  the  wrong  way,  but 
still  the  blessed  road.  It  was  a  mere  canal  of  liquid 
mud ;  but  man  had  made  it,  and  it  would  take  me 
home.  I  was  at  least  three  miles  from  the  point 
where  I  supposed  I  was  near  at  sunset,  and  I  had  be- 
fore me  a  toilsome  walk  of  six  or  seven  miles,  most  of 
the  way  in  a  ditch ;  but  it  is  truth  to  say  I  enjoyed 
every  step  of  it.  1  was  safe  ;  I  knew  where  I  was ; 
and  I  could  have  walked  till  morning.  The  mind 
had  again  got  the  upper  hand  of  the  body,  and  began 
to  plume  itself  on  its  superiority :  it  was  even  disposed 
to  doubt  whether  it  had  been  "  lost  "  at  all. 


A  FIGHT  WITH  A  TROUT 


TROUT-FISHING  in  the  Adirondacks  would  be  a  more 
attractive  pastime  than  it  is,  but  for  the  popular  notion 
of  its  danger.  The  trout  is  a  retiring  and  harmless  ani- 
mal, except  when  he  is  aroused,  and  forced  into  a  com- 
bat ;  and  then  his  agility,  fierceness,  and  vindictiveness 
become  apparent.  No  one  who  has  studied  the  excel- 
lent pictures  representing  men  in  an  open  boat,  exposed 
to  the  assaults  of  long,  enraged  trout  flying  at  them 
through  the  open  air  with  open  mouth,  ever  ventures 
with  his  rod  upon  the  lonely  lakes  of  the  forest  without 
a  certain  terror,  or  ever  reads  of  the  exploits  of  daring 
fishermen  without  a  feeling  of  admiration  for  their 
heroism.  Most  of  their  adventures  are  thrilling,  and 
all  of  them  are,  in  narration,  more  or  less  unjust  to 
the  trout :  in  fact,  the  object  of  them  seems  to  be  to 
exhibit,  at  the  expense  of  the  trout,  the  shrewdness,  the 
skill,  and  the  muscular  power  of  the  sportsman.  My 
own  simple  story  has  few  of  these  recommendations. 

We  had  built  our  bark  camp  one  summer,  and  were 
staying  on  one  of  the  popular  lakes  of  the  Saranac  re- 
gion. It  would  be  a  very  pretty  region  if  it  were  not 
so  flat,  if  the  margins  of  the  lakes  had  not  been  flooded 
by  dams  at  the  outlets,  —  which  have  killed  the  trees, 
and  left  a  rim  of  ghastly  dead-wood  like  the  swamps  of 
the  under- world  pictured  by  Dore"s  bizarre  pencil, — 
and  if  the  pianos  at  the  hotels  were  in  tune.  It  would 


24  A  FIGHT   WITH  A    TROUT 

be  an  excellent  sporting-region  also  (for  there  is  water 
enough)  if  the  fish  commissioners  would  stock  the 
waters,  and  if  previous  hunters  had  not  pulled  all  the 
hair  and  skin  off  from  the  deer's  tails.  Formerly  sports- 
men had  a  habit  of  catching  the  deer  by  the  tails,  and 
of  being  dragged  in  mere  wantonness  round  and  round 
the  shores.  It  is  well  known,  that,  if  you  seize  a  deer 
by  this  "  holt,"  the  skin  will  slip  off  like  the  peel  frorc 
a  banana.  This  reprehensible  practice  was  carried  so 
far,  that  the  traveller  is  now  hourly  pained  by  the  sight 
of  peeled-tail  deer  mournfully  sneaking  about  the  wood. 

We  had  been  hearing,  for  weeks,  of  a  small  lake 
in  the  heart  of  the  virgin  forest,  some  ten  miles  from 
our  camp,  which  was  alive  with  trout,  unsophisticated, 
hungry  trout :  the  inlet  to  it  was  described  as  stiff  with 
them.  In  my  imagination  I  saw  them  lying  there  in 
ranks  and  rows,  each  a  foot  long,  three  tiers  deep,  a 
solid  mass.  The  lake  had  never  been  visited,  except 
by  stray  sable-hunters  in  the  winter,  and  was  known 
as  the  Unknown  Pond.  I  determined  to  explore  it ; 
fully  expecting,  however,  that  it  would  prove  to  be  a 
delusion,  as  such  mysterious  haunts  of  the  trout  usually 
are.  Confiding  my  purpose  to  Luke,  we  secretly  made 
our  preparations,  and  stole  away  from  the  shanty  one 
morning  at  daybreak.  Each  of  us  carried  a  boat,  a  pair 
of  blankets,  a  sack  of  bread,  pork,  and  maple-sugar  5 
while  I  had  my  case  of  rods,  creel,  and  book  of  flies, 
and  Luke  had  an  axe  and  the  kitchen  utensils.  We 
think  nothing  of  loads  of  this  sort  in  the  woods. 

Five  miles  through  a  tamarack-swamp  brought  us  to 
the  inlet  of  Unknown  Pond,  upon  which  we  embarked 
our  fleet,  and  paddled  down  its  vagrant  waters.  They 
were  at  first  sluggish,  winding  among  triste  fir-trees, 
but  gradually  developed  a  strong  current.  At  the  end 


A   FIGHT   WITH  A    TROUT  25 

of  three  miles  a  loud  roar  ahead  warned  us  that  we  were 
approaching  rapids,  falls,  and  cascades.  We  paused. 
The  danger  was  unknown.  We  had  onr  choice  of 
shouldering  our  loads  and  making  a  detour  through 
the  woods,  or  of  "  shooting  the  rapids."  Naturally  we 
chose  the  more  dangerous  course.  Shooting  the  rapids 
has  often  been  described,  and  I  will  not  repeat  the 
description  here.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  I  drove 
my  frail  bark  through  the  boiling  rapids,  over  the  suc- 
cessive water-falls,  amid  rocks  and  vicious  eddies,  and 
landed  half  a  mile  below  with  whitened  hair  and  a 
boat  half  full  of  water ;  and  that  the  guide  was  upset, 
and  boat,  contents,  and  man  were  strewn  along  the 
shore. 

After  this  common  experience  we  went  quickly  on 
our  journey,  and,  a  co-.iple  of  hours  before  sundown, 
reached  the  lake.  If  I  live  to  my  dying  day,  I  never 
shall  forget  its  appearance.  The  lake  is  almost  an 
exact  circle,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  diameter. 
The  forest  about  it  was  untouched  by  axe,  and  unkilled 
by  artificial  flooding.  The  azure  water  had  a  perfect 
setting  of  evergreens,  in  which  all  the  shades  of  the 
fir,  the  balsam,  the  pine,  and  the  spruce,  were  perfectly 
blended  ;  and  at  intervals  on  the  shore,  in  the  emerald 
rim,  blazed  the  ruby  of  the  cardinal-flower.  It  was  at 
once  evident  that  the  unruffled  waters  had  never  been 
vexed  by  the  keel  of  a  boat.  But  what  chiefly  attracted 
otiy  attention,  and  amused  me,  was  the  boiling  of  the 
^ater,  the  bubbling  and  breaking,  as  if  the  lake  were 
a  vast  kettle,  with  a  fire  underneath.  A  tyro  would 
have  been  astonished  at  this  common  phenomenon ; 
but  sportsmen  will  at  once  understand  me  when  I  say 
that  the  water  boiled  with  the  breaking  trout.  I  studied 
ihe  surface  for  some  time  to  see  upon  what  sort  of- 


£6  A   FIGHT   WITH  A    TROUT 

flies  they  were  feeding,  in  order  to  suit  my  cast  to 
their  appetites  ;  but  they  seemed  to  be  at  play  rather 
than  feeding,  leaping  high  in  the  air  in  graceful  curves, 
and  tumbling  about  each  other  as  we  see  them  in  the 
Adirondack  pictures. 

It  is  well  known  that  no  person  who  regards  his 
reputation  will  ever  kill  a  trout  with  anything  but  a 
fly.  It  requires  some  training  on  the  part  of  the  trout 
to  take  to  this  method.  The  uncultivated,  unsophisti- 
cated trout  in  unfrequented  waters  prefers  the  bait; 
and  the  rural  people,  whose  sole  object  in  going  a-fish- 
ing  appears  to  be  to  catch  fish,  indulge  them  in  their 
primitive  taste  for  the  worm.  No  sportsman,  however, 
will  use  anything  but  a  fly,  except  he  happens  to  be 
alone. 

While  Luke  launched  my  boat,  and  arranged  his 
seat  in  the  stern,  I  prepared  my  rod  and  line.  The 
rod  is  a  bamboo,  weighing  seven  ounces,  which  has  to 
be  spliced  with  a  winding  of  silk  thread  every  time  it 
is  used.  This  is  a  tedious  process  ;  but,  by  fastening 
the  joints  in  this  way,  a  uniform  spring  is  secured  in 
the  rod.  No  one  devoted  to  high  art  would  think  of 
using  a  socket  joint.  My  line  was  forty  yards  of  un- 
twisted silk  upon  a  multiplying  reel.  The  "leader"- 
1  am  very  particular  about  my  leaders  —  had  been  made 
to  order  from  a  domestic  animal  with  which  I  had  been 
acquainted.  The  fisherman  requires  us  good  a  catgut 
as  the  violinist.  The  interior  of  the  house-cat,  it  is 
well  known,  is  exceedingly  sensitive  ;  but  it  may  not  be 
so  well  known  that  the  reason  why  some  cats  leave  the 
room  in  distress  when  a  piano-forte  is  played  is  because 
the  two  instruments  are  not  in  the  same  key,  and  the 
vibrations  of  the  chords  of  the  one  are  in  discord  with 
the  catgut  of  the  other.  On  six  feet  of  this  superior 


A   FIGHT   WITH  A    TROUT  27 

article  I  fixed  three  artificial  flies,  —  a  simple  brown 
hackle,  a  gray  body  with  scarlet  wings,  and  one  of  my 
own  invention,  which  I  thought  would  be  new  to  the 
most  experienced  fly-catcher.  The  trout-fly  does  not 
resemble  any  known  species  of  insect.  It  is  a  "  conven- 
tionalized "  creation,  as  we  say  of  ornamentation.  The 
theory  is,  that,  fly-fishing  being  a  high  art,  the  fly  must 
not  be  a  tame  imitation  of  nature,  but  an  artistic  sug- 
gestion of  it.  It  requires  an  artist  to  construct  one  ; 
and  not  every  bungler  can  take  a  bit  of  red  flannel,  a 
peacock's  feather,  a  flash  of  tinsel  thread,  a  cock's 
plume,  a  section  of  a  hen's  wing,  and  fabricate  a  tiny 
object  that  will  not  look  like  any  fly,  but  still  will  sug- 
gest the  universal  conventional  fly. 

I  took  my  stand  in  the  centre  of  the  tipsy  boat ;  and 
Luke  shoved  off,  and  slowly  paddled  towards  some 
lily-pads,  while  I  began  casting,  unlimbering  iny  tools, 
as  it  were.  The  fish  had  all  disappeared.  I  got  out, 
perhaps,  fifty  feet  of  line,  with  no  response,  and  grad- 
ually increased  it  to  one  hundred.  It  is  not  difficult 
to  learn  to  cast ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  learn  not  to  snap 
off  the  flies  at  every  throw.  Of  this,  however,  we  will 
not  speak.  I  continued  casting  for  some  moments,  un- 
til I  became  satisfied  that  there  had  been  a  miscalcu- 
lation. Either  the  trout  were  too  green  to  know  what 
I  was  at,  or  they  were  dissatisfied  with  my  offers.  I 
reeled  in,  and  changed  the  flies  (that  is,  the  fly  that 
was  not  snapped  off).  After  studying  the  color  of  the 
sky,  of  the  water,  and  of  the  foliage,  and  the  moderated 
^ight  of  the  afternoon.  I  put  on  a  series  of  beguilers, 
all  of  a  subdued  brilliancy,  in  harmony  with  the  ap- 
proach of  evening.  At  the  second  cast,  which  was  a 
short  one,  I  saw  a  splash  where  the  leader  fell,  and 
gave  an  excited  jerk.  The  next  instant  I  perceived 


28  A  FIGHT   WITH  A    TROUT 

the  game,  and  did  not  need  the  unfeigned  "  dam  "  of 
Luke  to  convince  me  that  I  had  snatched  his  felt  hav 
from  his  head,  and  deposited  it  among  the  lilies.  Dis- 
couraged by  this,  we  whirled  about,  and  paddled  over 
to  the  inlet,  where  a  little  ripple  was  visible  in  the 
tinted  light.  At  the  very  first  cast  I  saw  that  the  hour 
iiad  come.  Three  trout  leaped  into  the  air.  The 
danger  of  this  mano3uvre  all  fishermen  understand.  It 
is  one  of  the  commonest  in  the  woods  :  three  heavy 
trout  taking  hold  at  once,  rushing  in  different  direc= 
tions,  smash  the  tackle  into  flinders.  I  evaded  this 
catch,  and  threw  again.  I  recall  the  moment.  A  her- 
mit thrush,  on  the  tip  of  a  balsam,  uttered  his  long, 
liquid  evening  note.  Happening  to  look  over  my 
shoulder,  I  saw  the  peak  of  Marcy  gleam  rosy  in  the 
sky  (I  can't  help  it  that  Marcy  is  fifty  miles  off,  and 
cannot  be  seen  from  this  region  :  these  incidental 
touches  are  always  used).  The  hundred  feet  of  silk 
swished  through  the  air,  and  the  tail-fly  fell  as  lightly 
on  the  water  as  a  three-cent  piece,  which  no  slamming 
will  give  the  weight  of  a  ten,  drops  upon  the  contri- 
bution plate.  Instantly  there  was  a  rush,  a  swirl.  I 
struck,  and  "  Got  him,  by  —  !  "  Never  mind  what 
Luke  said  I  got  him  by.  "  Out  on  a  fly  !  "  continued 
that  irreverent  guide  :  but  I  told  him  to  back  water, 
and  make  for  the  centre  of  the  lake.  The  trout,  as 
soon  as  he  feit  the  prick  of  the  hook,  was  off  like  a 
shot,  and  took  out  the  whole  of  the  line  with  a  rapid 
ity  that  made  it  smoke.  "Give  him  the  butt!'' 
shouted  I  uke.  It  is  the  usual  remark  in  such  an 
emergency.  I  gave  him  the  butt ;  and,  recognizing  the 
fact  and  my  spirit,  the  trout  at  onoe  sank  to  the  bot- 
tom, and  sulked.  It  is  the  most  dangerous  mood  of  a 
trout ;  for  you  cannot  tell  what  he  will  do  next.  We 


A  FIGHT  WITH  A    TROUT  2S 

reeled  up  a  little,  and  waited  five  minutes  for  him  to 
reflect.  A  tightening  of  the  line  enraged  him,  and 
he  soon  developed  his  tactics.  Coming  to  the  surface, 
he  made  straight  for  the  boat  faster  than  I  could  reel 
in,  and  evidently  with  hostile  intentions.  "  Look  out 
for  him !  "  cried  Luke  as  he  came  flying  in  the  air. 
I  evaded  him  by  dropping  flat  in  the  bottom  of  the 
boat ;  and,  when  I  picked  my  traps  up,  he  was  spin- 
ning across  the  lake  as  if  he  had  a  new  idea ;  but  the 
line  was  still  fast.  He  did  not  run  far.  I  gave  him 
the  butt  again  ;  a  thing  he  seemed  to  hate,  even  as  a 
gift.  In  a  moment  the  evil-minded  fish,  lashing  the 
water  in  his  rage,  was  coming  back  again,  making 
straight  for  the  boat  as  before.  Luke,  who  was  used 
to  these  encounters,  having  read  of  them  in  the  writ- 
ings of  travellers  he  had  accompanied,  raised  his  pad- 
dle in  self-defence.  The  trout  left  the  water  about  ten 
feet  from  the  boat,  and  came  directly  at  me  with  fiery 
eyes,  his  speckled  sides  flashing  like  a  meteor.  1 
dodged  as  he  whisked  by  with  a  vicious  slap  of  his 
bifurcated  tail,  and  nearly  upset  the  boat.  The  line 
was  of  course  slack  ;  and  the  clanger  was  that  he  would 
entangle  it  about  me,  and  carry  away  a  leg.  This 
was  evidently  his  game  ;  but  I  untangled  it,  and  only 
lost  a  breast-button  or  two  by  the  swiftly-moving  string. 
The  trout  plunged  into  the  water  with  a  hissing  sound, 
and  went  away  again  with  all  the  line  on  the  reel. 
More  butt-,  more  indignation  on  the  part  of  the  cap- 
tive. The  contest  had  now  been  going  on  for  half  an 
hour,  and  I  was  getting  exhausted.  We  had  been  back 
and  forth  across  the  lake,  and  round  and  round  the 
lake.  What  I  feared  was,  that  the  trout  would  start 
up  the  inlet,  and  wreck  us  in  the  bushes.  But  he  had 
a  new  fancy,  and  began  the  execution  of  a  manoauvre 


30  A   FIGHT   WITH  A    TROUT 

which  I  had  never  read  of.  Instead  of  coming  straight 
towards  me,  he  took  a  large  circle,  swimming  rapidly, 
and  gradually  contracting  his  orbit.  I  reeled  in,  and 
kept  my  eye  on  him.  Round  and  round  he  went,  nar- 
rowing his  circle.  I  began  to  suspect  the  game ; 
which  was,  to  twist  my  head  off.  When  he  had  re- 
duced the  radius  of  his  circle  to  about  twenty-five  feet, 
he  struck  a  tremendous  pace  through  the  water.  It 
would  be  false  modesty  in  a  sportsman  to  say  that  I 
was  not  equal  to  the  occasion.  Instead  of  turning 
round  with  him,  as  he  expected,  I  stepped  to  the  bow, 
braced  myself,  and  let  the  boat  swing.  Round  went 
the  fish,  and  round  we  went  like  a  top.  I  saw  a  line 
of  Mount  Marcys  all  round  the  horizon  ;  the  rosy  tint 
in  the  west  made  a  broad  band  of  pink  along  the  sky 
above  the  tree-tops  ;  the  evening  star  was  a  perfect 
circle  of  light,  a  hoop  of  gold  in  the  heavens.  We 
whirled  and  reeled,  and  reeled  and  whirled.  I  was 
willing  to  give  the  malicious  beast  butt  and  line,  and 
all,  if  he  would  only  go  the  other  way  for  a  change. 

When  I  came  to  myself,  Luke  was  gaffing  the  trout 
at  the  boat-side.  After  we  had  got  him  in  and  dressed 
him,  he  weighed  three-quarters  of  a  pound.  Fish 
always  lose  by  being  "  got  in  and  dressed."  It  is  best 
to  weigh  them  while  they  are  in  the  water.  The  only 
really  large  one  I  ever  caught  got  away  with  my 
leader  when  I  first  struck  him.  He  weighed  ten  pounds 


A-HUNTING   OF  THE   DEER 


IF  civilization  owes  r  debt  of  gratitude  to  tlie 
sacrificing  sportsmen  who  have  cleared  the  Adiron* 
dack  regions  of  catamounts  and  savage  trout,  what 
shall  be  said  of  the  army  which  has  so  nobly  relieved 
them  of  the  terror  of  the  deer  ?  The  deer-slayers  have 
somewhat  celebrated  their  exploits  in  print ;  but  I 
think  that  justice  has  never  been  done  them. 

The  American  deer  in  the  wilderness,  left  to  him* 
self,  leads  ^  comparatively  harmless  but  rather  stupid 
life,  with  only  such  excitement  as  his  own  timid 
fancy  raises.  It  was  very  seldom  that  one  of  his  tribe 
was  eaten  by  the  North  American  tiger.  For  a  wild 
animal  he  is  very  domestic,  simple  in  his  tastes,  reg- 
ular in  his  habits,  affectionate  in  his  family.  Unfor- 
tunately for  his  repose,  his  haunch  is  as  tender  as 
his  heart.  Of  all  wild  creatures  he  is  one  of  the 
most  graceful  in  action,  and  he  poses  with  the  skill 
of  an  experienced  model.  I  have  seen  ":he  goats  on 
Mount  Pentelicus  scatter  at  the  approach  of  a  stran- 
ger, climb  to  the  sharp  points  of  projecting  rocks,  and 
attitudinize  in  the  most  self-conscious  manner,  strik- 
ing at  once  those  picturesque  postures  against  the  sky 
with  which  Oriental  pictures  havo  made  us  and  thena 
familiar.  But  the  whole  proceeding  was  theatrical. 
Greece  is  the  home  of  art,  and  it  is  rare  to  find  any- 
thing  there  natural  and  unstudied.  I  presume  that 


82  A-HUNTINQ   OF  THE   DEER 

these  goats  have  no  nonsense  about  them  when  they 
are  alone  with  the  goat-herds,  any  more  than  the  goat« 
herds  have,  except  when  they  come  to  pose  in  the  stu- 
dio ;  but  the  long  ages  of  culture,  the  presence  always 
to  the  eye  of  the  best  models  and  the  forms  of  im- 
mortal beauty,  the  heroic  friezes  of  the  Temple  of 
Theseus,  the  marble  processions  of  sacrificial  animals, 
have  had  a  steady  moulding,  educating  influence 
equal  to  a  society  of  decorative  art  upon  the  people 
and  the  animals  who  have  dwelt  in  this  artistic  atmos- 
phere. The  Attic  goat  has  become  an  artificially  ar- 
tistic being ;  though  of  course  he  is  not  now  what  he 
was,  as  a  poser,  in  the  days  of  Polycletus.  There  is 
opportunity  for  a  very  instructive  essay  by  Mr.  E.  A. 
Freeman  on  the  decadence  of  the  Attic  goat  under 
the  influence  of  the  Ottoman  Turk. 

The  American  deer,  in  the  free  atmosphere  of  our 
country,  and  as  yet  untouched  by  our  decorative  art, 
is  without  self-consciousness,  and  all  his  attitudes  are 
free  and  unstudied.  The  favorite  position  of  the 
deer  —  his  fore-feet  in  the  shallow  margin  of  the  lake, 
among  the  lily-pads,  his  antlers  thrown  back  and  his 
nose  in  the  air  at  the  moment  he  hears  the  stealthy 
breaking  of  a  twig  in  the  forest  —  is  still  spirited  and 
graceful,  and  wholly  unaffected  by  the  pictures  of  him 
which  the  artists  have  put  upon  canvas. 

Wherever  you  go  in  the  Northern  forest,  you  will 
find  deer-paths.  So  plainly  marked  and  well-trodden 
are  they,  that  it  is  easy  to  mistake  them  for  trails 
made  by  hunters ;  but  he  who  follows  one  of  them  is 
soon  in  difficulties.  He  may  find  himself  climbing 
through  cedar-thickets  an  almost  inaccessible  cliff,  or 
'mrnersed  in  the  intricacies  of  a  marsh.  The  "  run,'* 
rn  ono  direction,  will  lead  tc  water ;  but,  in  the  other. 


A-KUNTING  OF  THE  DEER  33 

it  climbs  the  highest  hills,  to  which  the  deer  retires, 
for  safety  and  repose,  in  impenetrable  thickets.  The 
hunters,  in  winter,  find  them  congregated,  in  "yards," 
where  they  can  be  surrounded  and  shot  as  easily  as 
our  troops  shoot  Comanche  women  and  children  in 
their  winter  villages.  These  little  paths  are  full  of 
pitfalls  among  the  roots  and  stones ;  and,  nimble  as 
the  deer  is,  he  sometimes  breaks  one  of  his  slender 
legs  in  them.  Yet  he  knows  how  to  treat  himself 
without  a  surgeon.  I  knew  of  a  tame  deer  in  a  settle- 
ment in  the  edge  of  the  forest  who  had  the  misfortune 
to  break  her  leg.  She  immediately  disappeared  with 
a  delicacy  rare  in  an  invalid,  and  was  not  seen  for  two 
weeks.  Her  friends  had  given  her  up,  supposing  that 
she  had  dragged  herself  away  into  the  depths  of  the 
woods,  and  died  of  starvation ;  when  one  day  she  re- 
turned, cured  of  lameness,  but  thin  as  a  virgin  shadow. 
She  had  the  sense  to  shun  the  doctor ;  to  lie  down 
in  some  safe  place,  and  patiently  wait  for  her  leg 
to  heal.  I  have  observed  in  many  of  the  more  re- 
fined animals  this  sort  of  shyness  and  reluctance  to 
give  trouble  which  excite  our  admiration  when  noticed 
in  mankind. 

The  deer  is  called  a  timid  animal,  and  taunted  with 
possessing  courage  only  when  he  is  "  at  bay ;  "  the 
stag  will  fight  when  he  can  no  longer  flee ;  and  the 
doe  will  defend  her  young  in  the  face  of  murderous 
enemies.  The  deer  gets  lit.tle  credit  for  thic  eleventh- 
hour  bravery.  But  I  think  that  in  any  trulv  Chris- 
tian condition  of  society  the  deer  would  not  be  con- 
spicuous for  cowardice.  I  suppose  that  if  the  Amer- 
ican girl,  even  as  she  is  described  in  foreign  romances, 
were  pursued  by  bull-dogs,  and  fired  at  from  behind 
fences  every  time  she  ventured  out-doors,  s-be  would 


34  A-HUNTING  OF  THE  DEER 

become  timid,  and  reluctant  to  go  abroad  Whet- 
that  golden  era  comes  which  the  poets  think  is  behind 
us,  and  the  prophets  declare  is  about  to  be  ushered  in 
by  the  opening  of  the  "  vials,"  and  the  killing  of  every- 
body who  does  not  believe  as  those  nations  believe 
which  have  the  most  cannon  ;  when  we  all  live  in  real 
concord, — perhaps  the  gentle-hearted  deer  will  be  re- 
spected, and  will  find  that  men  are  not  more  savage  to 
the  weak  than  are  the  cougars  and  panthers.  If  the 
little  spotted  fawn  can  think,  it  must  seem  to  her  a 
queer  world  in  which  the  advent  of  innocence  is  hailed 
by  the  baying  of  fierce  hounds  and  the  "  ping  "  of  the 
rifle. 

Hunting  the  deer  in  the  Adirondacks  is  conducted 
in  the  most  manly  fashion.  There  are  several  meth- 
ods, and  in  none  of  them  is  a  fair  chance  to  the  deer 
considered.  A  favorite  method  with  the  natives  is 
practised  in  winter,  and  is  called  by  them  "  still  hunt- 
ing." My  idea  of  still  hunting  is  for  one  man  to  go 
alone  into  the  forest,  look  about  for  a  deer,  put  hia 
wits  fairly  against  the  wits  of  the  keen-scented  animal, 
and  kill  his  deer,  or  get  lost  in  the  attempt.  There 
seems  to  be  a  sort  of  fairness  about  this.  It  is  private 
assassination,  tempered  with  a  little  uncertainty  about 
finding  your  man.  The  still  hunting  of  the  natives 
has  all  the  romance  and  danger  attending  the  slaugh- 
ter of  sheep  in  an  abattoir.  As  the  snow  gets  deep, 
many  deer  congregate  in  the  depths  of  the  forest,  and 
keep  a  place  trodden  down,  which  grows  larger  as 
they  tramp  down  the  snow  in  search  of  food.  In  time 
this  refuge  becomes  a  sort  of  "  yard,"  surrounded  by 
unbroken  snow-banks.  The  hunters  then  make  their 
way  to  this  retreat  on  snow-shoes,  and  from  the  top  of 
the  banks  pick  off  the  deer  at  leisure  with  their  rifles, 


A-HVNTING   OF  THE  DEER  35 

and  haul  them  away  to  market,  until  the  enclosure  is 
pretty  much  emptied.  This  is  one  of  the  surest  meth« 
ods  of  exterminating  the  deer ;  it  is  also  one  of  the 
most  merciful;  and,  being  the  plan  adopted  by  our 
government  for  civilizing  the  Indian,  it  ought  to  be 
popular.  The  only  people  who  object  to  it  are  the 
summer  sportsmen.  They  naturally  want  some  pleas- 
ure out  of  the  death  of  the  deer. 

Some  of  our  best  sportsmen,  who  desire  to  protract 
the  pleasure  of  slaying  deer  through  as  many  seasons 
as  possible,  object  to  the  practice  of  the  hunters,  who 
make  it  their  chief  business  to  slaughter  as  many  deer 
in  a  camping-season  as  they  can.  Their  own  rule, 
they  say,  is  to  kill  a  deer  only  when  they  need  venison 
to  eat.  Their  excuse  is  specious.  What  right  have 
these  sophists  to  put  themselves  into  a  desert  place, 
out  of  the  reach  of  provisions,  and  then  ground  a 
right  to  slay  deer  on  their  own  improvidence  ?  If  it 
is  necessary  for  these  people  to  have  anything  to  eat, 
which  I  doubt,  it  is  not  necessary  that  they  should 
have  the  luxury  of  venison. 

One  of  the  most  picturesque  methods  of  hunting 
the  poor  deer  is  called  "  floating."  The  person,  with 
murder  in  his  heart,  chooses  a  cloudy  night,  seats  him- 
self, rifle  in  hand,  in  a  canoe,  which  is  noiselessly  pad- 
dled by  the  guide,  and  explores  the  shore  of  the  lake 
or  the  dark  inlet.  In  the  bow  of  the  boat  is  a  light 
in  a  "  jack,"  the  rays  of  which  are  shielded  from  the 
boat  and  its  occupants.  A  deer  comes  down  to  feed 
upon  the  lily-pads.  The  boat  approaches  him.  Ho 
looks  up,  and  stands  a  moment,  terrified  or  fascinated 
by  the  bright  flames.  In  that  moment  the  sportsman 
is  supposed  to  shoot  the  deer.  As  an  historical  fact, 
ills  hand  usually  shakes,  so  that  he  misses  the  animal. 


36  A-HUNTING  OF   THE  DEER 

or  only  wounds  him ;  and  the  stag  limps  away  to  Air 
after  days  of  suffering.  Usually,  however,  the  hunt 
ers  remain  out  all  night,  get  stiff  from  cold  and  the 
cramped  position  in  the  boat,  and,  when  they  return 
in  the  morning  to  camp,  cloud  their  future  existence 
by  the  assertion  that  they  "  heard  a  big  buck  "  mov- 
ing along  the  shore,  but  the  people  in  camp  made  so 
much  noise  that  he  was  frightened  off. 

By  all  odds,  the  favorite  and  prevalent  mode  is 
hunting  with  dogs.  The  dogs  do  the  hunting,  the 
men  the  killing.  The  hounds  are  sent  into  the  forest 
to  rouse  the  deer,  and  drive  him  from  his  cover. 
They  climb  the  mountains,  strike  the  trails,  and  go 
baying  and  yelping  on  the  track  of  the  poor  beast. 
The  deer  have  their  established  run-ways,  as  I  said ; 
and,  when  they  are  disturbed  in  their  retreat,  they 
are  certain  to  attempt  to  escape  by  following  one 
frhich  invariably  leads  to  some  lake  or  stream.  All 
that  the  hunter  has  to  do  is  to  seat  himself  by  one  of 
these  run-ways,  or  sit  in  a  boat  on  the  lake,  and  wait 
the  coming  of  the  pursued  deer.  The  frightened 
beast,  fleeing  from  the  unreasoning  brutality  of  the 
hounds,  will  often  seek  the  open  country,  with  a  mis- 
taken confidence  in  the  humanity  of  man.  To  kill  a 
deer  when  he  suddenly  passes  one  on  a  run-way  de- 
mands presence  of  mind,  and  quickness  of  aim  :  to 
shoot  him  from  the  boat,  after  he  has  plunged  panting 
into  the  lake,  requires  the  rare  ability  to  hit  a  moving 
object  the  size  of  a  deer's  head  a  few  rods  distant* 
Either  exploit  is  sufficient  to  make  a  hero  of  a  com- 
mon man.  To  paddle  up  to  the  swimming  deer,  and 
cut  his  throat,  is  a  sure  means  of  getting  venison,  and 
has  its  charms  for  some.  Even  women,  and  doctors 
of  divinity,  have  enjoyed  this  exquisite  pleasure.  It 


A-HUNTING   OF  THE  DEER  37 

cannot  be  denied  that  we  are  so  constituted  by  a  wise 
Creator  as  to  feel  a  delight  in  killing  a  wild  animal 
which  we  do  not  experience  in  killing  a  tame  one. 

The  pleasurable  excitement  of  a  deer-hunt  ha8 
never,  I  believe,  been  regarded  from  the  deer's  point 
of  view.  I  happen  to  be  in  a  position  by  reason  of 
\  lucky  Adirondack  experience,  to  present  it  in  that 
light.  I  am  sorry  if  this  introduction  to  my  little 
story  has  seemed  long  to  the  reader:  it  is  too  late 
now  to  skip  it ;  but  he  can  recoup  himself  by  omitting 
the  story. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  the  23d  of  August,  1877, 
a  doe  was  feeding  on  Basin  Mountain.  The  night 
had  been  warm  and  showery,  and  the  morning  opened 
in  an  undecided  way.  The  wind  was  southerly  :  it  is 
what  the  deer  call  a  dog-wind,  having  come  to  know 
quite  well  the  meaning  of  "  a  southerly  wind  and  a 
cloudy  sky."  The  sole  companion  of  the  doe  was  her 
only  child,  a  charming  little  fawn,  whose  brown  coat 
was  just  beginning  to  be  mottled  with  the  beautiful 
spots  which  make  this  young  creature  as  lovely  as  the 
gazelle.  The  buck,  its  father,  had  been  that  night  on 
a  long  tramp  across  the  mountain  to  Clear  Pond,  and 
had  not  yet  returned  :  he  went  ostensibly  to  feed  on 
the  succulent  lily-pads  there.  "  He  feedeth  among  the 
lilies  until  the  day  break  and  the  shadows  flee  away, 
and  he  should  be  here  by  this  hour ;  but  he  cometh 
not,"  she  said,  "  leaping  upon  the  mountains,  skipping 
upon  the  hills."  Clear  Pond  was  too  far  off  for  the 
young  mother  to  go  with  her  fawn  for  a  night's  pleas- 
ure. It  was  a  fashionable  watering-place  at  this  sea- 
son among  the  deer  ;  and  the  doe  may  have  remem- 
bered, not  without  uneasiness,  the  moonlight  meetings 
of  9,  frivolous  society  there.  But  the  buck  did  no* 


38  A-HUNTING   OF  THE  DEER 

come :  he  was  very  likely  sleeping  under  one  of  th«? 
ledges  on  Tight  Nippin.  Was  he  alone ?  "I  charge 
you,  by  the  roes  and  by  the  hinds  of  the  field,  that 
ye  stir  not  nor  awake  my  love  till  he  please." 

The  doe  was  feeding,  daintily  cropping  the  tender 
leaves  of  the  young  shoots,  and  turning  from  time  to 
time  to  regard  her  offspring.  The  fawn  had  taken  his 
morning  meal,  and  now  lay  curled  up  on  a  bed  cf 
moss,  watching  contentedly,  with  his  large,  soft  brown 
eyes,  every  movement  of  his  mother.  The  great  eyes 
followed  her  with  an  alert  entreaty;  and,  if  the 
mother  stepped  a  pace  or  two  farther  away  in  feed- 
ing, the  fawn  made  a  half-movement,  as  if  to  rise  and 
follow  her.  You  see,  she  was  his  sole  dependence  in 
all  the  world.  But  he  was  quickly  reassured  when 
she  turned  her  gaze  on  him ;  and  if,  in  alarm,  he  ut- 
tered a  plaintive  cry,  she  bounded  to  him  at  once, 
and,  with  every  demonstration  of  affection,  licked  his 
mottled  skin  till  it  shone  again. 

It  was  a  pretty  picture,  —  maternal  love  on  the  one 
part,  and  happy  trust  on  the  other.  The  doe  was 
a  beauty,  and  would  have  been  so  considered  any- 
where, as  graceful  and  winning  a  creature  as  the  sun 
that  day  shone  on,  —  slender  limbs,  not  too  heavy 
flanks,  round  body,  and  aristocratic  head,  with  small 
ears,  and  luminous,  intelligent,  affectionate  eyes. 
How  alert,  supple,  free,  she  was  !  What  untaught 
grace  in  every  movement !  What  a  charming  pose 
when  she  lifted  her  head,  and  turned  it  to  regard  her 
child  !  You  would  have  had  a  companion-picture,  if 
you  had  seen,  as  I  saw  that  morning,  a  baby  kicking 
about  among  the  dry  pine-needles  on  a  ledge  above 
the  Ausable,  in  the  valley  below,  while  its  young 
mother  sat  near,  with  an  easel  before  her  touching  i» 


A-HUNTING   OF  THE  DEER  39 

the  color  of  a  reluctant  landscape,  giving  a  quick  look 
at  the  sky  and  the  outline  of  the  Twin  Mountains, 
and  bestowing  every  third  glance  upon  the  laughing 
boy,  —  art  in  its  infancy. 

The  doe  lifted  her  head  a  little  with  a  quick  motion, 
and  turned  her  ear  to  the  south.  Had  she  heard 
something  ?  Probably  it  was  only  the  south  winds  IE 
the  balsams.  There  was  silence  all  about  in  the  for= 
est.  If  the  doe  had  heard  anything  it  was  one  of  the 
distant  noises  of  the  world.  There  are  in  the  woods 
occasional  moanings,  premonitions  of  change,  which 
are  inaudible  to  the  dull  ears  of  men,  but  which,  I 
have  no  doubt,  the  forest-folk  hear  and  understand* 
If  the  doe's  suspicions  were  excited  for  an  instant, 
they  were  gone  as  soon.  With  an  affectionate  glance 
at  her  fawn,  she  continued  picking  up  her  breakfast. 

But  suddenly  she  started,  head  erect,  eyes  dilated, 
a  tremor  in  her  limbs.  She  took  a  step  ;  she  turned 
her  head  to  the  south  ;  she  listened  intently.  There 
was  a  sound,  —  a  distant,  prolonged  note,  bell-toned, 
pervading  the  woods,  shaking  the  air  in  smooth  vibra- 
tions. It  was  repeated.  The  doe  had  no  doubt  now. 
She  shook  like  the  sensitive  mimosa  when  a  footstep 
approaches.  It  was  the  baying  of  a  hound  !  It  was 
far  off,  —  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain.  Time  enough 
to  fly  ;  time  enough  to  put  miles  between  her  and  the 
hound,  before  he  should  come  upon  her  fresh  trail ; 
time  enough  to  escape  away  through  the  dense  forest, 
and  hide  in  the  recesses  of  Panther  Gorge ;  yes,  time 
enough.  But  there  was  the  fawn.  The  cry  or  the 
hound  was  repeated,  more  distinct  this  time.  The 
mother  instinctively  bounded  away  a  few  paces.  The 
?awn  started  up  with  an  anxious  bleat.  The  doe 
turned ;  she  came  back  ;  shvi  could  n't  leave  it.  She 


40  A-HUNTING  OF  THE  DEER 

bent  over  it,  and  licked  it,  and  seemed  to  say,  " 
my  child ;  we  are  pursued ;  we  must  go."  She 
walked  away  towards  the  west,  and  the  little  thing 
skipped  after  her.  It  was  slow  going  for  the  slender 
legs,  over  the  fallen  logs,  and  through  the  rasping 
bushes.  The  doe  bounded  in  advance,  and  waited; 
the  fawn  scrambled  after  her,  slipping  and  tumbling 
along,  very  groggy  yet  on  its  legs,  and  whining  a 
good  deal  because  its  mother  kept  always  moving 
away  from  it.  The  fawn  evidently  did  not  hear  the 
hound  ;  the  little  innocent  would  even  have  looked 
sweetly  at  the  dog,  and  tried  to  make  friends  with  it. 
if  the  brute  had  been  rushing  upon  him.  By  all  the 
means  at  her  command  the  doe  urged  her  young  one 
on  ;  but  it  was  slow  work.  She  might  have  been  a 
mile  away  while  they  were  making  a  few  rods. 
Whenever  the  fawn  caught  up  he  was  quite  content 
to  frisk  about.  He  wanted  more  breakfast,  for  one 
thing ;  and  his  mother  would  n't  stand  still.  She 
moved  on  continually ;  and  his  weak  legs  were  tangled 
in  the  roots  of  the  narrow  deer-path. 

Shortly  came  a  sound  that  threw  the  doe  into  a 
panic  of  terror,  —  a  short,  sharp  yelp,  followed  by  a 
prolonged  howl,  caught  up  and  re-echoed  by  other 
bayings  along  the  mountain-side.  The  doe  knew 
what  that  meant.  One  hound  had  caught  her  trail, 
and  the  whole  pack  responded  to  the  "  view-halloo.'' 
The  danger  was  certain  now ;  it  was  near.  She 
eould  not  crawl  on  in  this  way ;  the  dogs  would  soon 
be  upon  them.  She  turned  again  for  flight :  the  fawn, 
scrambling  after  her,  tumbled  over,  and  bleated  pite- 
ously.  The  baying,  now  emphasized  by  the  yelp  of 
certainty,  came  nearer.  Flight  with  the  fawn  was 
impossible.  The  doe  returned  and  stood  by  it,  head 


A-HUNTINQ    OF   fHE  DEER  41 

erect,  and  nostrils  distended.  She  stood  perfectly 
still,  but  trembling.  Perhaps  she  was  thinking.  The 
fawn  took  advantage  of  the  situation,  and  began  to 
draw  his  luncheon  ration.  The  doe  seemed  to  have 
made  up  her  mind.  She  let  him  finish.  The  fawn, 
having  taken  all  he  wanted,  lay  down  contentedly, 
and  the  doe  licked  him  for  a  moment.  Then,  with 
the  swiftness  of  a  bird,  she  dashed  away,  and  in 
p  moment  was  lost  in  the  forest.  She  went  in  the 
direction  of  the  hounds. 

According  to  all  human  calculations,  she  was  going 
into  the  jaws  of  death.  So  she  was :  all  human  calcu- 
lations are  selfish.  She  kept  straight  on,  hearing  the 
baying  every  moment  more  distinctly.  She  descended 
the  slope  of  the  mountain  until  she  reached  the  more 
open  forest  of  hard-wood.  It  was  freer  going  here, 
and  the  cry  of  the  pack  echoed  more  resoundingly 
in  the  great  spaces.  She  was  going  due  east,  when 
(judging  by  the  sound,  the  hounds  were  not  far  off, 
though  they  were  still  hidden  by  a  ridge)  she  turned 
away  towards  the  north,  and  kept  on  at  a  good  pace. 
In  five  minutes  more  she  heard  the  sharp,  exultant 
yelp  of  discovery,  and  then  the  deep-mouthed  howl  of 
pursuit.  The  hounds  had  struck  her  trail  where  she 
turned,  and  the  fawn  was  safe. 

The  doe  was  in  good  running  condition,  the  ground 
was  not  bad,  and  she  felt  the  exhilaration  of  the 
chase.  For  the  moment,  fear  left  her,  and  she  bounded 
on  with  the  exaltation  of  triumph.  For  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  she  went  on  at  a  slapping  pace,  clearing  the 
moose-bushes  v/ith  bound  after  bound,  flying  over  the 
fallen  logs,,  pausing  neither  for  brook  or  ravine.  The 
baying  of  the  hounds  grew  fainter  behind  her.  But 
ahe  struck  a  bad  piece  of  going,  a  dead-wood  slash. 


42  A-HUNTING   OF  THE  DEER 

It  was  marvellous  to  see  her  skim  over  it,  leaping 
among  its  intricacies,  and  not  breaking  her  slender 
legs.  No  other  living  animal  could  do  it.  But  it 
was  killing  work.  She  began  to  pant  fearfully ;  she 
lost  ground.  The  baying  of  the  hounds  was  nearer. 
She  climbed  the  hard- wood  hill  at  a  slower  gait :  but, 
once  on  more  level,  free  ground,  her  breath  came  back 
to  her,  and  she  stretched  away  with  new  courage,  and 
may  be  a  sort  of  contempt  of  her  heavy  pursuers. 

After  running  at  a  high  speed  perhaps  half  a  mile 
farther,  it  occurred  to  her  that  it  would  be  safe  now 
to  turn  to  the  west,  and,  by  a  wide  circuit,  seek  her 
fawn.  But,  at  the  moment,  she  heard  a  sound  that 
chilled  her  heart.  It  was  the  cry  of  a  hound  to 
the  west  of  her.  The  crafty  brute  had  made  the  cir- 
cuit of  the  slash,  and  cut  off  her  retreat.  There  was 
nothing  to  do  but  to  keep  on  ;  and  on  she  went,  still 
to  the  north,  with  the  noise  of  the  pack  behind  her, 
In  five  minutes  more  she  had  passed  into  a  hill- 
side clearing.  Cows  and  young  steers  were  grazing 
there.  She  heard  a  tinkle  of  bells.  Below  her,  down 
the  mountain-slope,  were  other  clearings,  broken  by 
patches  of  woods.  Fences  intervened ;  and  a  mile 
or  two  down  lay  the  valley,  the  shining  Ausable,  and 
the  peaceful  farm-houses.  That  way  also  her  hered 
itary  enemies  were.  Not  a  merciful  heart  in  all  that 
lovely  valley.  She  hesitated ;  it  was  only  for  an  in- 
stant. She  must  cross  the  Slidebrook  Valley  if  possi- 
ble, and  gain  the  mountain  opposite.  She  bounded 
on  ;  she  stopped.  What  was  that  ?  From  the  valley 
ahead  came  the  cry  of  a  searching  hound.  All  the 
devils  were  loose  this  morning.  Every  way  was 
closed  but  one,  and  that  led  straight  down  the  moun- 
tain to  the  cluster  of  houses.  Conspicuous  among 


A-HUNTING   OF   THE  DEER  43 

them  was  a  slender  white  wooden  spire.  The  doe  did 
not  know  it  was  the  spire  of  a  Christian  chapel,  but 
perhaps  she  thought  that  human  pity  dwelt  there,  and 
"Would  be  more  merciful  than  the  teeth  of  the  hound? 

"  The  hounds  are  baying'on  my  track : 
0  white  man  !    will  you  send  me  back  ?  " 

In  a  panic,  frightened  animals  will  always  flee  tcr 
feuman-kind  from  the  danger  of  more  savage  foes. 
They  always  make  a  mistake  in  doing  so.  Perhaps 
the  trait  is  the  survival  of  an  era  of  peace  on  earth  r 
perhaps  it  is  a  prophecy  of  the  golden  age  of  the 
future.  The  business  of  this  age  is  murder,  —  the 
slaughter  of  animals,  the  slaughter  of  fellow-men,  by 
the  wholesale.  Hilarious  poets  who  never  fired  a  gun 
write  hunting  songs,  —  Ti-ra-la :  and  good  bishops 
write  war-songs,  —  Ave  the  Czar  ! 

The  hunted  doe  went  down  "  the  open,"  clearing 
the  fences  splendidly,  flying  along  the  stony  path.  It 
was  a  beautiful  sight.  But  consider  what  a  shot 
it  was!  If  the  deer,  now,  could  only  have  been 
caught !  No  doubt  there  were  tender-hearted  people 
in  the  valley  who  would  have  spared  her  life,  shut  her 
up  in  a  stable,  and  petted  her.  Was  there  one  who 
would  have  let  her  go  back  to  her  waiting  fawn  ?  It 
is  the  business  of  civilization  to  tame  or  kill. 

The  doe  went  on  ;  she  left  the  saw-mill  on  John's 
Brook  to  her  right ;  she  turned  into  a  wood-path.  As 
she  approached  Slide  Brook,  she  saw  a  boy  standing 
by  a  tree  with  a  raised  rifle.  The  dogs  were  not  in 
sight,  but  she  could  hear  them  coming  down  the  hill. 
There  was  no  time  for  hesitation.  With  a  tremendous 
burst  of  speed  she  cleared  the  stream,  and,  as  she 
touched  the  bank,  heard  the  "  ping  "  of  a  rifle  bullet 
in  the  air  above  her.  The  cruel  sound  gave  wings  to 


A-HUNTING   OF   THE  DEER 

the  poor  thing.  In  a  moment  more  she  was  in  the 
opening  :  she  leaped  into  the  travelled  road.  Which 
way  ?  Below  her  in  the  wood  was  a  load  of  hay :  a 
man  and  a  boy,  with  pitchforks  in  their  hands,  were 
running  towards  her.  She  turned  south,  and  flew 
along  the  street.  The  town  was  up.  Women  and 
children  ran  to  the  doors  and  windows ;  men  snatched 
their  rifles ;  shots  were  fired ;  at  the  big  boarding- 
houses,  the  summer  boarders,  who  never  have  any- 
thing to  do,  came  out  and  cheered  ;  a  camp-stool  was 
thrown  from  a  veranda.  Some  young  fellows  shoot- 
ing at  a  mark  in  the  meadow  saw  the  flying  deer,  and 
popped  away  at  her :  but  they  were  accustomed  to  a 
mark  that  stood  still.  It  was  all  so  sudden  !  There 
were  twenty  people  who  were  just  going  to  shoot  her  ; 
when  the  doe  leaped  the  road  fence,  and  went  away 
across  a  marsh  towards  the  foot-hills.  It  was  a  fear- 
ful gauntlet  to  run.  But  nobody  except  the  deer  con- 
sidered it  in  that  light.  Everybody  told  what  he  was 
just  going  to  do!  everybody  who  had  seen  the  per- 
formance was  a  kind  of  hero,  —  everybody  except  the 
deer.  For  days  and  days  it  was  the  subject  of  con- 
versation ;  and  the  summer  boarders  kept  their  guns 
at  hand,  expecting  another  deer  would  come  to  be 
shot  at. 

The  doe  went  away  to  the  foot-hills,  going  now 
slower,  and  evidently  fatigued,  if  not  frightened  half 
to  death.  Nothing  is  so  appalling  to  a  recluse  as  a 
half  a  mile  of  summer  boarders.  As  the  deer  entered 
the  thin  woods  she  saw  a  rabble  of  people  start  across 
the  meadoAV  in  pursuit.  By  this  time,  the  dogs,  pant- 
ing and  lolling  out  their  tongues,  came  swinging  along, 
keeping  the  trail,  like  stupids,  and  consequently  los« 
ingr  ground  when  the  deer  doubled.  Butf  when  the 


A-HUNTING   OF  THE  DEER  45 

doe  had  got  into  the  timber,  she  heard  the  savage 
brutes  howling  across  the  meadow.  (It  is  well 
enough,  perhaps,  to  say  that  nobody  offered  to  shoot 
the  dogs.) 

The  courage  of  the  panting  fugitive  was  not  gone : 
she  was  game  to  the  tip  of  her  high-bred  ears.  But 
the  fearful  pace  at  which  she  had  just  been  going  told 
on  her.  Her  legs  trembled,  and  her  heart  beat  like  a 
trip-hammer.  She  slowed  her  speed  perforce,  but  still 
fled  industriously  up  the  right  bank  of  the  stream. 
When  she  had  gone  a  couple  of  miles,  and  the  dogs 
were  evidently  gaining  again,  she  crossed  the  broad, 
deep  brook,  climbed  the  steep,  left  bank,  and  fled  on 
in  the  direction  of  the  Mount  Marcy  trail.  The  ford- 
ing of  the  river  threw  the  hounds  off  for  a  time.  She 
knew,  by  their  uncertain  yelping  up  and  down  the  op- 
posite bank,  that  she  had  a  little  respite  :  she  used  it, 
however,  to  push  on  until  the  baying  was  faint  in  her 
ears ;  and  then  she  dropped,  exhausted,  upon  the 
ground. 

This  rest,  brief  as  it  was,  saved  her  life.  Roused 
again  by  the  baying  pack,  she  leaped  forward  with 
better  speed,  though  without  that  keen  feeling  of  ex- 
hilarating flight  that  she  had  in  the  morning.  It  was 
still  a  race  for  life ;  but  the  odds  were  in  her  favor, 
she  thought.  She  did  not  appreciate  the  dogged 
persistence  of  the  hounds,  nor  had  any  inspiration 
told  her  that  the  race  is  not  to  the  swift.  She  was  a 
little  confused  in  her  mind  where  to  go ;  but  an  in 
stinct  kept  her  course  to  the  left,  and  consequently  far- 
ther away  from  her  fawn.  Going  now  slower,  and  now 
faster,  as  the  pursuit  seemed  more  distant  or  nearer, 
she  kept  to  the  south-west,  crossed  the  stream  again, 
left  Panther  Gorge  on  her  right,  and  ran  on  by  Hay- 


*6  A-HUNTING  OF  THE  DEER 

stack  and  Skylight  in  the  direction  of  the  Upper 
Ausable  Pond.  I  do  not  know  her  exact  course 
through  this  maze  of  mountains,  swamps,  ravines,  and 
frightful  wildernesses.  I  only  know  that  the  poor 
thing  worked  her  way  along  painfully,  with  sinking 
heart  and  unsteady  limbs,  lying  down  "  dead-beat "  at 
intervals,  and  then  spurred  on  by  the  cry  of  the  re- 
morseless dogs,  until,  late  in  the  afternoon  she  stag- 
gered down  the  shoulder  of  Bartlett,  and  stood  upon 
the  shore  of  the  lake.  If  she  could  put  that  piece  of 
water  between  her  and  her  pursuers,  she  would  be 
safe.  Had  she  strength  to  swim  it  ? 

At  her  first  step  into  the  water  she  saw  a  sight  that 
send  her  back  with  a  bound.  There  was  a  boat  mid- 
lake  ;  two  men  were  in  it.  One  was  rowing  :  the  other 
had  a  gun  in  his  hand.  They  were  looking  towards 
her  :  they  had  seen  her.  (She  did  not  know  that  they 
had  heard  the  baying  of  hounds  on  the  mountains, 
and  had  been  lying  in  wait  for  her  an  hour.)  What 
should  she  do  ?  The  hounds  were  drawing  near. 
No  escape  that  way,  even  if  she  could  still  run. 
With  only  a  moment's  hesitation  she  plunged  into  the 
lake,  and  struck  obliquely  across.  Her  tired  legs 
could  not  propel  the  tired  body  rapidly.  She  saw  the 
boat  headed  for  her.  She  turned  towards  the  centre 
of  the  lake.  The  boat  turned.  She  could  hear  the 
rattle  of  the  oar-locks.  It  was  gaining  on  her.  Then 
there  was  a  silence.  Then  there  was  a  splash  of  the 
water  just  ahead  of  her,  followed  by  a  roar  round  the 
lake,  the  words  "  Confound  it  all !  "  and  a  rattle  of 
the  oars  again.  The  doe  saw  the  boat  nearing  her. 
She  turned  irresolutely  to  the  shore  whence  she  came: 
the  dogs  were  lapping  the  water,  and  howling  there. 
She  turned  again  to  the  centre  of  the  lake. 


A-HUNTING  OF  THE  DEER  47 

The  brave,  pretty  creature  was  quite  exhausted  now. 
In  a  moment  more,  with  a  rush  of  water,  the  boat  was 
on  her,  and  the  man  at  the  oars  had  leaned  over  and 
caught  her  by  the  tail. 

tk  Knock  her  on  the  head  with  that  paddle  I  "  he 
shouted  to  the  gentleman  in  the  stern. 

The  gentleman  was  a  gentleman,  with  a  kind, 
smooth-shaven  face,  and  might  have  been  a  minister 
of  some  sort  of  everlasting  gospel.  He  took  the  pad- 
dle in  his  hand.  Just  then  the  doe  turned  her  head, 
and  looked  at  him  with  her  great,  appealing  eyes. 

"  I  can't  do  it !  my  soul,  I  can't  do  it !  "  and  he 
dropped  the  paddle.  "  Oh,  let  her  go  !  " 

"  Let  thunder  go ! "  was  the  only  response  of  the 
guide  as  he  slung  the  deer  round,  whipped  out  his 
hunting-knife,  and  made  a  pass  that  severed  her  jug* 
ular. 

And  the  gentleman  ate  that  night  of  the  venison. 

The  buck  returned  about  the  middle  of  the  after- 
noon. The  fawn  was  bleating  piteously,  hungry  and 
lonesome.  The  buck  was  surprised.  He  looked  about 
in  the  forest.  He  took  a  circuit  and  came  back.  His 
doe  was  nowhere  to  be  seen.  He  looked  down  at  the 
fawn  in  a  helpless  sort  of  way.  The  fawn  appealed 
for  his  supper.  The  buck  had  nothing  whatever  to 
give  his  child,  —  nothing  but  his  sympathy.  If  he 
said  anything,  this  is  what  he  said  :  "  I  'm  the  head  of 
this  family ;  but,  really,  this  is  a  novel  case.  I  've 
nothing  whatever  for  you.  I  don't  know  what  to  do. 
I  've  the  feelings  of  a  father ;  but  you  can't  live  on 
them.  Let  us  travel." 

The  buck  walked  away :  the  little  one  toddled  af  tel 
him  They  disappeared  in  the  forest. 


A  CHARACTER  STUDY 


THERE  lias  been  a  lively  inquiry  after  the  primeval 
man.  Wanted,  a  man  who  would  satisfy  the  conditions 
of  the  miocene  environment,  and  yet  would  be  good 
enough  for  an  ancestor.  We  are  not  particular  about 
our  ancestors,  if  they  are  sufficiently  remote ;  but  we 
must  have  something.  Failing  to  apprehend  the  pri- 
meval man,  science  has  sought  the  primitive  man  where 
he  exists  as  a  survival  in  present  savage  races.  He  is, 
at  best,  only  a  mushroom  growth  of  the  recent  period 
(came  in,  probably,  with  the  general  raft  of  mamma- 
lian fauna)  ;  but  he  possesses  yet  some  rudimentary 
traits  that  may  be  studied. 

It  is  a  good  mental  exercise  to  try  to  fix  the  mind 
on  the  primitive  man  divested  of  all  the  attributes  he 
has  acquired  in  his  struggles  with  the  other  mammalian 
fauna.  Fix  the  mind  on  an  orange,  the  ordinary  occu- 
pation of  the  metaphysician  :  take  from  it.  without  eat- 
ing it,  odor,  color,  weight,  form,  substance,  and  peel ; 
then  let  the  mind  still  dwell  on  it  as  an  orange.  The 
experiment  is  perfectly  successful ;  only,  at  the  end 
of  it,  you  have  n't  any  mind.  Better  still,  consider  the 
telephone  :  take  away  from  it  the  metallic  disk,  and 
the  magnetized  iron,  and  the  connecting  wire,  and  then 
let  the  mind  run  abroad  on  the  telephone.  The  mind 
won't  come  back.  I  have  tried  by  this  sort  of  process 
to  get  a  conception  of  the  primitive  man.  1  let  the 


A   CHARACTER  STUDY  49 

mind  roam  away  back  over  the  vast  geologic  spaces, 
and  sometimes  fancy  I  see  a  dim  image  of  him  stalking 
across  the  terrace  epoch  of  the  quaternary  period. 

But  this  is  an  unsatisfying  pleasure.  The  best  results 
are  obtained  by  studying  the  primitive  man  as  he  is 
jeft  here  and  there  in  our  era,  a  witness  of  what  has 
been  ;  and  I  find  him  most  to  my  mind  in  the  Adiron- 
dack system  of  what  geologists  call  the  Champlain 
epoch.  I  suppose  the  primitive  rnan  is  one  who  owes 
more  to  nature  than  to  the  forces  of  civilization. 
What  we  seek  in  him  are  the  primal  and  original 
traits,  unmixed  with  the  sophistications  of  society,  and 
unimpaired  by  the  idfinements  of  an  artificial  culture. 
He  would  retain  the  primitive  instincts,  which  are 
cultivated  out  of  the  ordinary,  commonplace  man.  I 
should  expect  to  find  him,  by  reason  of  an  unrelin- 
quished kinship,  enjoying  a  special  communion  with 
nature,  —  admitted  to  its  mysteries,  understanding  its 
moods,  and  able  to  predict  its  vagaries.  He  would  be 
a  kind  of  test  to  us  of  what  we  have  lost  by  our  gre- 
garious acquisitions.  On  the  one  hand,  there  would 
be  the  sharpness  of  the  senses,  the  keen  instincts 
which  the  fox  and  beaver  still  possess,  the  ability  to 
find  one's  way  in  the  pathless  forest,  to  follow  a  trail, 
to  circumvent  the  wild  denizens  of  the  woods  ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  would  be  the  philosophy  of  life 
which  the  primitive  man,  with  little  external  aid,  would 
evolve  from  original  observation  and  cogitation.  It  is 
our  good  fortune  to  know  such  a  man  ;  but  it  is  difficult 
to  present  him  to  a  scientific  and  cavilling  generation. 
He  emigrated  from  somewhat  limited  conditions  in 
Vermont,  at  an  early  age,  nearly  half  a  century  ago, 
and  sought  freedom  for  his  natural  development  back- 
Ward  in  the  wilds  of  the  Adirondacks.  Sometimes  it 


50  A   CHARACTER  STUDY 

is  a  love  of  adventure  and  freedom  that  sends  men  out 
of  the  more  civilized  conditions  into  the  less ;  some- 
times it  is  a  constitutional  physical  lassitude  which 
leads  them  to  prefer  the  rod  to  the  hoe,  the  trap  to  the 
sickle,  and  the  society  of  bears  to  town-meetings  and 
taxes.  I  think  that  Old  Mountain  Phelps  had  merely 
the  instincts  of  the  primitive  man,  and  never  any  hos 
tile  civilizing  intent  as  to  the  wilderness  into  which  he 
plunged.  Why  should  he  want  to  slash  away  the 
forest,  and  plough  up  the  ancient  mould,  when  it  is 
infinitely  pleasanter  to  roam  about  in  the  leafy  soli- 
tudes, or  sit  upon  a  mossy  log  and  listen  to  the  chatter 
of  birds  and  the  stir  of  beasts  ?  Are  there  not  trout 
in  the  streams,  gum  exuding  from  the  spruce,  sugar  in 
the  maples,  honey  in  the  hollow  trees,  fur  on  the  sables, 
warmth  in  hickory-logs  ?  Will  not  a  few  days'  plant, 
ing  and  scratching  in  the  "  open  "  yield  potatoes  and 
rye  ?  And,  if  there  is  steadier  diet  needed  than  veni- 
son and  bear,  is  the  pig  an  expensive  animal  ?  If  Old 
Phelps  bowed  to  the  prejudice  or  fashion  of  his  age, 
—  since  we  have  come  out  of  the  tertiary  state  of 
things, — and  reared  a  family,  built  a  frame-house  in  a 
secluded  nook  by  a  cold  spring,  planted  about  it  some 
apple-trees  and  a  rudimentary  garden,  and  installed  a 
group  of  flaming  sunflowers  by  the  door,  I  am  con- 
vinced that  it  was  a  concession  that  did  not  touch  his 
radical  character ;  that  is  to  say,  it  did  not  impair  his 
reluctance  to  split  oven-wood. 

He  was  a  true  citizen  of  the  wilderness.  Thoreau 
would  have  liked  him,  as  he  liked  Indians  and  wood- 
chucks,  and  the  smell  of  pine-forests;  and,  if  Old 
Phelps  had  seen  Thoreau,  he  would  probably  have 
said  to  him,  "  Why  on  airth,  Mr.  Thoreau,  don't  you 
live  accordin'  to  your  preachin'  ? "  You  might  be 


A   CHARACTER  STUDY  51 

misled  by  the  shaggy  suggestion  of  Old  Phelps's  given 
Siame  —  Orson  —  into  the  notion  that  he  was  a  mighty 
Jiunter,  with  the  fierce  spirit  of  the  Berserkers  in  his 
^eins.  Nothing  could  be  farther  from  the  truth.  The 
hirsute  and  grisly  sound  of  Orson  expresses  only  his 
entire  affinity  with  the  untamed  and  the  natural,  an 
uncouth  but  gentle  passion  for  the  freedom  and  wild- 
ness  of  the  forest.  Orson  Phelps  has  only  those  un- 
conventional aud  humorous  qualities  of  the  bear  which 
make  the  animal  so  beloved  in  literature  ;  and  one  does 
not  think  of  Old  Phelps  so  much  as  a  lover  of  nature, 
—  to  use  the  sentimental  slang  of  the  period,  —  as  a 
part  of  nature  itself. 

His  appearance  at  the  time  when  as  a  "  guide  "  he 
began  to  come  into  public  notice  fostered  this  impres- 
sion, —  a  sturdy  figure,  with  long  body  and  short  legs, 
clad  in  a  woollen  shirt  and  butternut-colored  trousers 
repaired  to  the  point  of  picturesqueness,  his  head  sur- 
mounted by  a  limp,  light-brown  felt  hat,  frayed  away 
at  the  top,  so  that  his  yellowish  hair  grew  out  of  it 
like  some  nameless  fern  out  of  a  pot.  His  tawny  hair 
was  long  and  tangled,  matted  now  many  years  past 
the  possibility  of  being  entered  by  a  comb.  His  fea- 
tures were  small  and  delicate,  and  set  in  the  frame  of 
a  reddish  beard,  the  razor  having  mowed  away  a  clear- 
ing about  the  sensitive  mouth,  which  was  not  seldom 
wreathed  with  a  child-like  and  charming  smile.  Out 
of  this  hirsute  environment  looked  the  small  gray  eyes, 
set  near  together ;  eyes  keen  to  observe,  and  quick  to 
express  change  of  thought ;  eyes  that  made  you  be 
lieve  instinct  can  grow  into  philosophic  judgment. 
His  feet  and  hands  were  of  aristocratic  smallness, 
although  the  latter  were  not  worn  away  by  ablutions ; 
in  fact,  they  assisted  his  toilet  to  give  you  the  i 


52  A   CHARACTER  STUDY 

sion  that  here  was  a  man  who  had  just  come  out  of  the 
ground,  —  a  real  son  of  the  soil,  whose  appearance  was 
partially  explained  by  his  humorous  relation  to  soap. 
"  Soap  is  a  thing,"  he  said,  "  that  I  hain't  no  kinder 
use  for."  His  clothes  seemed  to  have  been  put  on 
him  once  for  all,  like  the  bark  of  a  tree,  a  long  time 
ago.  The  observant  stranger  was  sure  to  be  puzzled 
by  the  contrast  of  this  realistic  and  uncouth  exterior 
with  the  internal  fineness,  amounting  to  refinement 
and  culture,  that  shone  through  it  all.  What  com- 
munion had  supplied  the  place  of  our  artificial  breed- 
ing to  this  man? 

Perhaps  his  most  characteristic  attitude  was  sitting 
on  a  log,  with  a  short  pipe  in  his  mouth.  If  ever  man 
was  formed  to  sit  on  a  log,  it  was  Old  Phelps.  He  was 
essentially  a  contemplative  person.  Walking  on  a 
country  road,  or  anywhere  in  the  "  open,"  was  irksome 
to  him.  He  had  a  shambling,  loose-jointed  gait,  not 
unlike  that  of  the  bear :  his  short  legs  bowed  out,  as 
if  they  had  been  more  in  the  habit  of  climbing  trees 
than  of  walking.  On  land,  if  we  may  use  that  expres- 
sion, he  was  something  like  a  sailor ;  but,  once  in  the 
rugged  trail  or  the  unmarked  route  of  his  native  forest, 
he  was  a  different  person,  and  few  pedestrians  could 
compete  with  him.  The  vulgar  estimate  of  his  con- 
temporaries, that  reckoned  Old  Phelps  "  lazy,"  was 
simply  a  failure  to  comprehend  the  conditions  of  his 
being.  It  is  the  unjustness  of  civilization  that  it  sets 
up  uniform  and  artificial  standards  for  all  persons. 
The  primitive  man  suffers  by  them  much  as  the  con- 
templative philosopher  does,  when  one  happens  to 
arrive  in  this  busy,  fussy  world. 

If  the  appearance  of  Old  Phelps  attracts  attention, 
his  voice,  when  first  heard,  invariably  startles  the  lis- 


A   CHARACTER  STUD?  53 

tener.  A  small,  high-pitched,  half-querulous  voice,  it 
easily  rises  into  the  shrillest  falsetto ;  and  it  has  a 
quality  in  it  that  makes  it  audible  in  all  the  tempests 
of  the  forest,  or  the  roar  of  rapids,  like  the  piping  of 
a  boatswain's  whistle  at  sea  in  a  gale.  He  has  a  way 
of  letting  it  rise  as  his  sentence  goes  on,  or  when  he  is 
opposed  in  argument,  or  wishes  to  mount  above  other 
voices  in  the  conversation,  until  it  dominates  every- 
thing. Heard  in  the  depths  of  the  woods,  quavering 
aloft,  it  is  felt  to  be  as  much  a  part  of  nature,  an  origi- 
nal force,  as  the  northwest  wind  or  the  scream  of  the 
hen-hawk.  When  he  is  pottering  about  the  camp-fire, 
trying  to  light  his  pipe  with  a  twig  held  in  the  flame, 
he  is  apt  to  begin  some  philosophical  observation  in  a 
small,  slow,  stumbling  voice,  which  seems  about  to  end 
in  defeat,  —  when  he  puts  on  some  unsuspected  force, 
and  the  sentence  ends  in  an  insistent  shriek.  Horace 
Greeley  had  such  a  voice,  and  could  regulate  it  in  the 
same  manner.  But  Phelps's  voice  is  not  seldom  plain- 
tive, as  if  touched  by  the  dreamy  sadness  of  the  woods 
themselves. 

When  Old  Mountain  Phelps  was  discovered,  he  was, 
as  the  reader  has  already  guessed,  not  understood  by 
his  contemporaries.  His  neighbors,  farmers  in  the 
secluded  valley,  had  many  of  them  grown  thrifty  and 
prosperous,  cultivating  the  fertile  meadows,  and  vigo- 
rously attacking  the  timbered  mountains ;  while  Phelps, 
with  not  much  more  faculty  of  acquiring  property  than 
;he  roaming  deer,  had  pursued  the  even  tenor  of  the 
life  in  the  forest  on  which  he  set  out.  They  would 
have  been  surprised  to  be  told  that  Old  Phelps  owned 
more  of  what  makes  the  value  of  the  Adirondacks  than 
all  of  them  put  together,  but  it  was  true.  This  woods- 
man, this  trapper,  this  hunter,  this  fisherman,  this  sit- 


54  A    CHARACTER  STUDY 

ter  on  a  log,  and  philosopher,  was  the  real  proprietor 
of  the  region  over  which  he  was  ready  to  guide  the 
stranger.  It  is  true  that  he  had  not  a  monopoly  of  its 
geography  or  its  topography,  though  his  knowledge 
was  superior  in  these  respects ;  there  were  other  trap- 
pers, and  more  deadly  hunters,  and  as  intrepid  guides; 
but  Old  Phelps  was  the  discoverer  of  the  beauties  and 
sublimities  of  the  mountains  ;  and,  when  city  strangers 
broke  into  the  region,  he  monopolized  the  apprecia- 
tion of  these  delights  and  wonders  of  nature.  I  sup- 
pose, that,  in  all  that  country,  he  alone  had  noticed 
the  sunsets,  and  observed  the  delightful  processes  of 
the  seasons,  taken  pleasure  in  the  woods  for  themselves, 
and  climbed  mountains  solely  for  the  sake  of  the  pro- 
spect. He  alone  understood  what  was  meant  by 
"  scenery."  In  the  eyes  of  his  neighbors,  who  did  not 
know  that  he  was  a  poet  and  a  philosopher,  I  dare  say 
he  appeared  to  be  a  slack  provider,  a  rather  shiftless 
trapper  and  fisherman  ;  and  his  passionate  love  of  the 
forest  and  the  mountains,  if  it  was  noticed,  was  ac- 
counted to  him  for  idleness.  When  the  appreciative 
tourist  arrived,  Phelps  was  ready,  as  guide,  to  open  to 
him  all  the  wonders  of  his  possessions  ;  he,  for  the  first 
time,  found  an  outlet  for  his  enthusiasm,  and  a  re- 
sponse to  his  own  passion.  It  then  became  known 
what  manner  of  man  this  was  who  had  grown  up  here 
in  the  companionship  of  forests,  mountains,  and  wild 
animals  ;  that  these  scenes  had  highly  developed  in 
him  the  love  of  beauty,  the  esthetic  sense,  delicacy  of 
appreciation,  refinement  of  feeling;  and  that,  in  h;<i 
solitary  wanderings  and  musings,  the  primitive  man, 
self-taught,  had  evolved  for  himself  a  philosophy  and 
a  system  of  things.  And  it  was  a  sufficient  system, 
so  long  as  it  was  not  disturbed  by  external  scepticism. 


A   CHARACTER  STUDY  55 

When  the  outer  world  came  to  him,  perhaps  he  had 
about  as  much  to  give  to  it  as  to  receive  from  it ;  prob- 
ably more,  in  his  own  estimation  ;  for  there  is  no  con- 
ceit like  that  of  isolation. 

Phelps  loved  his  mountains.  He  was  the  discoverer 
of  Marey.  and  caused  the  first  trail  to  be  cut  to  its 
summit,  so  that  others  could  enjoy  the  noble  views 
from  its  round  and  rocky  top.  To  him  it  was,  in  noble 
cyminf try  and  beauty,  the  chief  mountain  of  the  globe. 
To  stand  on  it  gave  him,  as  he  said.  "  a  feeling  of  hea- 
ven up-b/isted-uess."  He  heard  with  impatience  that 
Mount  Washington  was  a  thousand  feet  higher,  and 
he  had  a  child-like  incredulity  about  the  surpassing 
sublimity  of  the  Alps.  Praise  of  any  other  elevation 
.he  seemed  to  consider  a  slight  to  Mount  Marcy,  and 
did  not  willingly  hear  it,  any  more  than  a  lover  hears 
the  laudation  of  the  beauty  of  another  woman  than 
the  one  he  loves.  When  he  showed  us  scenery  he 
loved,  it  made  him  melancholy  to  have  us  speak  of 
scenery  elsewhere  that  was  finer.  And  yet  there  was 
this  delicacy  about  him,  that  he  never  over-praised 
what  he  brought  us  to  see,  any  more  than  one  would 
over-praise  a  friend  of  whom  he  was  fond.  I  remem- 
ber, that,  when  for  the  first  time,  after  a  toilsome  jour- 
ney through  the  forest,  the  splendors  of  the  Lower 
Ausable  Pond  broke  upon  our  vision,  —  that  low-lying 
silver  lake,  imprisoned  bv  the  precipices  which  it  re- 
flected in  its  bosom, —  he  made  no  outward  response 
to  onr  burst  of  admiration  :  only  a  quiet  gleam  of  the 
eye  showed  the  pleasure  our  appreciation  gave  him. 
As  some  one  said,  it  was  as  if  bis  friend  had  been  ad- 
mired, —  a  friend  about  whom  he  was  unwilling  to  say 
cnich  himself,  but  well  pleased  to  have  others  praise. 
Thus  far  we  have  considered  Old  Phelps  as  sini- 


56  A  CHARACTER  STUDY 

ply  the  product  of  the  Adirondacks;  not  so  much 
a  self-made  man  (as  the  doubtful  phrase  has  it)  as  a 
natural  growth  amid  primal  forces.  But  our  study 
is  interrupted  by  another  influence,  which  complicate? 
the  problem,  but  increases  its  interest.  No  scientific 
observer,  so  far  as  we  know,  has  ever  been  able  to 
watch  the  development  of  the  primitive  man,  played 
upon  and  fashioned  by  the  hebdomadal  iteration  of 
"  Greeley's  Weekly  Tri-bune."  Old  Phelps  educated 
by  the  woods  is  a  fascinating  study ;  educated  by  the 
woods  and  the  Tri-bune,  he  is  a  phenomenon.  No 
one  at  this  day  can  reasonably  conceive  exactly  what 
this  newspaper  was  to  such  a  mountain  valley  as 
Keene.  If  it  was  not  a  Providence,  it  was  a  Bible. 
It  was  no  doubt  owing  to  it  that  Democrats  became 
as  scarce  as  moose  in  the  Adirondacks.  But  it  is  not 
of  its  political  aspect  that  I  speak.  I  suppose  that 
the  most  cultivated  and  best  informed  portion  of  the 
earth's  surface  —  the  Western  Reserve  of  Ohio,  as 
free  from  conceit  as  it  is  from  a  suspicion  that  it  lacks 
anything  —  owes  its  pre-eminence  solely  to  this  com- 
prehensive journal.  It  received  from  it  everything 
except  a  collegiate  and  a  classical  education, —  things 
not  to  be  desired,  since  they  interfere  with  the  self- 
manufacture  of  man.  If  Greek  had  been  in  this 
curriculum,  its  best  known  dictum  would  have  been 
translated,  "  Make  thyself."  This  journal  carried  t<? 
the  community  that  fed  on  it  not  only  a  complete 
education  in  all  departments  of  human  practice  anci 
theorizing,  but  the  more  valuable  and  satisfying  as- 
surance that  there  was  nothing  more  to  be  gleaned  in 
the  universe  worth  the  attention  of  man.  This  pan- 
oplied its  readers  in  completeness.  Politics,  litera- 
ture, arts,  sciences,  universal  brotherhood  and  sister- 


A   CHARACTER  STUDY  57 

hood,  —  nothing  was  omitted  ;  neither  the  poetry  of 
Tennyson,  nor  the  philosophy  of  Margaret  Fuller; 
neither  the  virtues  of  association,  nor  of  unbolted 
wheat.  The  laws  of  political  economy  and  trade 
were  laid  down  as  positively  and  clearly  as  the  best 
way  to  bake  beans,  and  the  saving  truth  that  the  mil- 
lennium would  come,  and  come  only  when  every  foot 
of  the  earth  was  subsoiled. 

I  do  not  say  that  Orson  Phelps  was  the  product  of 
nature  and  the  Tri-bune  ;  but  he  cannot  be  explained 
without  considering  these  two  factors.  To  him  Gree- 
ley  was  the  Tri-bune,  and  the  Tri-bune  was  Greeley ; 
and  yet  I  think  he  conceived  of  Horace  Greeley  as 
something  greater  than  his  newspaper,  and  perhaps 
capable  of  producing  another  journal  equal  to  it  in 
another  part  of  the  universe.  At  any  rate,  so  com- 
pletely did  Phelps  absorb  this  paper  and  this  person- 
ality, that  he  was  popularly  known  as  "  Greeley  "  in 
the  region  where  he  lived.  Perhaps  a  fancied  resem- 
blance of  the  two  men  in  the  popular  mind  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  this  transfer  of  name.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  Horace  Greeley  owed  his  vast  influence  in 
the  country  to  his  genius,  nor  much  doubt  that  he 
owed  his  popularity  in  the  rural  districts  to  James 
Gordon  Bennett ;  that  is,  to  the  personality  of  the 
man  which  the  ingenious  Bennett  impressed  upon  the 
country.  That  he  despised  the  conventionalities  of 
society,  and  was  a  sloven  in  his  toilet,  was  firmly  be 
lieved ;  and  the  belief  endeared  him  to  the  hearts  of 
the  people.  To  them  "the  old  white  coat"  —an 
antique  garment  of  unrenewed  immortality —  was  as 
much  a  subject  of  idolatry  as  the  redingote  grise  to 
the  soldiers  of  the  first  Napoleon,  who  had  seen  it  by 
the  camp-fires  on  the  Po  and  on  the  Borysthenes,  and 


6tf  A   CHARACTER  STUDY 

believed  that  he  would  come  again  in  it  to  lead  them 
against  the  enemies  of  France.  The  Greeley  of  the 
popular  heart  was  clad  as  Bennett  said  he  was  clad. 
It  was  in  vain,  even  pathetically  in  vain,  that  he  pub- 
lished in  his  newspaper  the  full  bill  of  his  fashionable 
tailor  (the  fact  that  it  was  receipted  may  have  excited 
the  animosity  of  some  of  his  contemporaries)  to  show 
that  he  wore  the  best  broadcloth,  and  that  the  folds 
of  his  trousers  followed  the  city  fashion  of  falling 
outside  his  boots.  If  this  revelation  was  believed,  it 
made  no  sort  of  impression  in  the  country.  The  rural 
readers  were  not  to  be  wheedled  out  of  their  cher- 
ished conception  of  the  personal  appearance  of  the 
philosopher  of  the  Tri-bune. 

That  the  Tri-bune  taught  Old  Phelps  to  be  more 
Phelps  than  he  would  have  been  without  it  was  part 
of  the  independence-teaching  mission  of  Greeley's 
paper.  The  subscribers  were  an  army,  in  which 
every  man  was  a  general.  And  I  am  not  surprised 
to  find  Old  Phelps  lately  rising  to  the  audacity  of 
criticising  his  exemplar.  In  some  recently-published 
observations  by  Phelps  upon  the  philosophy  of  read- 
ing is  laid  down  this  definition  :  "  If  I  understand  the 
necessity  or  use  of  reading,  it  is  to  reproduce  again 
what  has  been  said  or  proclaimed  before.  Hence  let" 
ters,  characters,  &c.,  are  arranged  in  all  the  perfec- 
tion they  possibly  can  be,  to  show  how  certain  lan- 
guage has  been  spoken  by  the  original  author.  Now, 
to  reproduce  by  reading,  the  reading  should  be  so  per- 
fectly like  the  original,  that  no  one  standing  out  of 
sight  could  tell  the  reading  from  the  first  time  the  Ian- 
guage  was  spoken." 

This  is  illustrated  by  the  highest  authority  at  hand : 
'*•  I  have  heard  as  good  readers  read,  and  as  poor  read- 


A   CHARACTER  &TUDY  59 

ers,  as  almost  any  one  in  this  region.  If  I  have  not 
heard  as  many,  I  have  had  a  chance  to  hear  nearly 
the  extreme  in  variety.  Horace  Greeley  ought  to 
have  been  a  good  reader.  Certainly  but  few,  if  any, 
ever  knew  every  word  of  the  English  language  at  a 
glance  more  readily  than  he  did,  or  knew  the  mean- 
ing of  every  mark  of  punctuation  more  clearly  ;  but 
he  could  not  read  proper.  '  But  how  do  you  know  ?  ' 
says  one.  From  the  fact,  I  heard  him  in  the  same 
lecture  deliver  or  produce  remarks  in  his  own  partic- 
ular way,  that,  if  they  had  been  published  properly 
in  print,  a  proper  reader  would  have  reproduced  them 
again  the  same  way.  In  the  midst  of  those  remarks 
Mr.  Greeley  took  up  a  paper,  to  reproduce  by  reading 
part  of  a  speech  that  some  one  else  had  made  ;  and 
his  reading  did  not  sound  much  more  like  the  man 
that  first  read  or  made  the  speech  than  the  clatter  of 
a  nail-factory  sounds  like  a  well-delivered  speech. 
Now,  the  fault  was  not  because  Mr.  Greeley  did  not 
know  how  to  read  as  well  as  almost  any  man  that  ever 
lived,  if  not  quite :  but  in  his  youth  he  learned  to 
read  wrong ;  and,  as  it  is  ten  times  harder  to  unlearn 
anything  than  it  is  to  learn  it,  he,  like  thousands  of 
others,  could  never  stop  to  unlearn  it,  but  carried  it 
on  through  his  whole  life." 

Whether  a  reader  would  be  thanked  for  reproducing 
one  of  Horace  Greeley's  lectures  as  he  delivered  it  is 
a  question  that  cannot  detain  us  here ;  but  the  teach- 
ing that  he  ought  to  do  so,  I  think,  would  please  Mr0 
Greeley. 

The  first  driblets  of  professional  tourists  and  sum- 
mer boarders  who  arrived  among  the  Adirondack 
Mountains  a  few  years  ago  found  Old  Phelps  the  chief 
and  best  guide  of  the  region.  Those  who  were  eager 


60  A    CHARACTER  STUDY 

to  throw  off  the  usages  of  civilization,  and  tramp  and 
camp  in  the  wilderness,  could  not  but  be  well  satisfied 
with  the  aboriginal  appearance  of  this  guide  ;  and  when, 
he  led  off  into  the  woods,  axe  in  hand,  and  a  huge  can- 
vas sack  upon  his  shoulders,  they  seemed  to  be  follow- 
ing the  Wandering  Jew.  The  contents  of  this  sack 
would  have  furnished  a  modern  industrial  exhibition, 
—  provisions  cooked  and  raw,  blankets,  maple-sugar, 
tin-ware,  clothing,  pork,  Indian-meal,  flour,  coffee,  tea, 
&c.  Phelps  was  the  ideal  guide:  he  knew  every  foot 
of  the  pathless  forest;  he  knew  all  wood-craft,  all  the 
signs  of  the  weather,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  how 
to  make  a  Delphic  prediction  about  it.  He  was  fisher- 
man and  hunter,  and  had  been  the  comrade  of  sports- 
men and  explorers  ;  and  his  enthusiasm  for  the  beauty 
and  sublimity  of  the  region,  and  for  its  untamable 
wildness,  amounted  to  a  passion.  He  loved  his  pro- 
fession ;  and  yet  it  very  soon  appeared  that  he  exercised 
it  with  reluctance  for  those  who  had  neither  ideality, 
nor  love  for  the  woods.  Their  presence  was  a  profa- 
nation amid  the  scenery  he  loved.  To  guide  into  his 
private  and  secret  haunts  a  party  that  had  no  apprecia- 
tion of  their  loveliness  disgusted  him.  It  was  a  waste 
of  his  time  to  conduct  flippant  young  men  and  giddy 
girls  who  made  a  noisy  and  irreverent  lark  of  the  ex- 
pedition. And,  for  their  part,  they  did  not  appreciate 
the  benefit  of  being  accompanied  by  a  poet  and  a  phi- 
losopher. They  neither  understood  nor  valued  his 
special  knowledge  and  his  shrewd  observations:  they 
did  n't  even  like  his  shrill  voice  ;  his  quaint  talk  bored 
them.  It  was  true,  that,  at  this  period,  Phelps  had 
lost  something  of  the  activity  of  his  youth ;  and  the 
habit  of  contemplative  sitting  on  a  log  and  talking  in- 
creased with  the  infirmities  induced  by  the  hard  life  of 


A   CHARACTER  STUDY  61 

the  woodsman.  Perhaps  he  would  rather  talk,  either 
about  the  woods-life  or  the  various  problems  of  exist- 
ence, than  cut  wood,  or  busy  himself  in  the  drudgery 
of  the  camp.  His  critics  went  so  far  as  to  say,  "  Old 
Phelps  is  a  fraud."  They  would  have  said  the  same 
of  Socrates.  Xantippe,  who  never  appreciated  the 
world  in  which  Socrates  lived,  thought  be  was  lazy. 
Probably  Socrates  could  cook  no  better  than  Old 
Phelps,  and  no  doubt  went  " gumming  "  about  Athens 
with  very  little  care  of  what  was  in  the  pot  for  dinner. 
If  the  summer  visitors  measured  Old  Phelps,  he 
also  measured  them  by  his  own  standards.  He  used 
to  write  out  what  he  called  "  short-faced  descriptions  " 
of  his  comrades  in  the  woods,  which  were  never  so 
flattering  as  true.  It  was  curious  to  see  how  the  vari- 
ous qualities  which  are  esteemed  in  society  appeared 
in  his  eyes,  looked  at  merely  in  their  relation  to  the 
limited  world  he  knew,  and  judged  by  their  adaptation 
to  the  primitive  life.  It  was  a  much  subtler  compari- 
son than  that  of  the  ordinary  guide,  who  rates  his  travel- 
ler by  his  ability  to  endure  on  a  march,  to  carry  a  pack, 
use  an  oar,  hit  a  mark,  or  sing  a  song.  Phelps  brought 
his  people  to  a  test  of  their  naturalness  and  sincerity, 
tried  by  contact  with  the  verities  of  the  woods.  If  a 
person  failed  to  appreciate  the  woods,  Phelps  had  no 
opinion  of  him  or  his  culture ;  and  yet,  although  he 
was  perfectly  satisfied  with  his  own  philosophy  of  life, 
worked  out  by  close  observation  of  nature  and  study 
of  the  Tri-bune,  he  was  always  eager  for  converse  with 
superior  minds,  —  with  those  who  had  the  advantage 
of  travel  and  much  reading,  and,  above  all,  with  those 
who  had  any  original  "  speckerlation."  Of  all  the  so- 
ciety he  was  ever  permitted  to  enjoy,  I  think  he  prized 
most  that  of  Dr.  Bushnell.  The  doctor  enjoyed  the 


62  A   CHARACTER  STUDY 

quaint  and  first-hand  observations  of  the  old  woodsman, 
md  Phelps  found  new  worlds  open  to  him  in  the  wide 
ranges  of  the  doctor's  mind.  They  talked  by  the  hour 
upon  all  sorts  of  themes, — the  growth  of  the  tree,  the 
habits  of  wild  animals,  the  migration  of  seeds,  the  suc- 
cession of  oak  and  pine,  not  to  mention  theology,  and 
the  mysteries  of  the  supernatural. 

I  recall  the  bearing  of  Old  Phelps,  when,  several 
years  ago,  he  conducted  a  party  to  the  summit  of 
Mount  Marcy  by  the  way  he  had  "  bushed  out." 
This  was  his  mountain,  and  he  had  a  peculiar  sense 
of  ownership  in  it.  In  a  way,  it  was  holy  ground  ;  and 
he  would  rather  no  one  should  go  on  it  who  did  not 
feel  its  sanctity.  Perhaps  it  was  a  sense  of  some  di- 
vine relation  in  it  that  made  him  always  speak  of  it 
as  "  Mercy."  To  him  this  ridiculously  dubbed  Mount 
Mr.rcy  was  always  "  Mount  Mercy."  By  a  like  effort 
to  soften  the  personal  offensiveness  of  the  nomencla- 
ture of  this  region,  he  invariably  spoke  of  Dix's  Peak, 
one  of  the  southern  peaks  of  the  range,  as  "  Dixie." 
It  was  some  time  since  Phelps  himself  had  visited  his 
mountain  ;  and,  as  he  pushed  on  through  the  miles  of 
forest,  we  noticed  a  kind  of  eagerness  in  the  old  man, 
as  of  a  lover  going  to  a  rendezvous.  Along  the  foot 
of  the  mountain  flows  a  clear  trout-stream,  secluded 
and  undisturbed  in  those  awful  solitudes,  which  is  the 
"  Mercy  Brook "  of  the  old  woodsman.  That  day 
when  he  crossed  it,  in  advance  of  his  company,  he  was 
heard  to  say  in  a  low  voice,  as  if  greeting  some  object 
of  which  he  was  shyly  fond,  "  So,  little  brook,  do  I 
meet  you  once  more  ?  "  and  when  we  were  well  up  the 
mountain,  and  emerged  from  the  last  stunted  fringe 
of  vegetation  upon  the  rock-bound  slope,  I  saw  Old 
Phelps,  who  was  still  foremost,  cast  himself  upon  the 


A   CHARACTER  STUDY  68 

ground,  and  heard  him  cry,  with  an  enthusiasm  that 
was  intended  for  no  mortal  ear,  "  I  'in  with  you  once 
again  ! "  His  great  passion  very  rarely  found  expres- 
sion in  any  such  theatrical  burst.  The  bare  summit 
that  day  was  swept  by  a  fierce,  cold  wind,  and  lost  in 
an  occasional  chilling  cloud.  Some  of  the  party,  ex- 
hausted by  the  climb,  and  shivering  in  the  rude  wind, 
wanted  a  fire  kindled  and  a  cup  of  tea  made,  and 
thought  this  the  guide's  business.  Fire  and  tea  were 
far  enough  from  his  thought.  He  had  withdrawn 
himself  quite  apart,  and,  wrapped  in  a  ragged  blanket, 
still  and  silent  as  the  rock  he  stood  on,  was  gazing 
out  upon  the  wilderness  of  peaks.  The  view  from 
Marcy  is  peculiar.  It  is  without  softness  or  relief. 
The  narrow  valleys  are  only  dark  shadows ;  the  lakes 
are  bits  of  broken  mirror.  From  horizon  to  horizon 
there  is  a  tumultuous  sea  of  billows  turned  to  stone. 
You  stand  upon  the  highest  billow  ;  you  command  the 
situation ;  you  have  surprised  Nature  in  a  high  crea- 
tive act ;  the  mighty  primal  energy  has  only  just  be- 
come repose.  This  was  a  supreme  hour  to  Old  Phelps. 
Tea!  I  believe  the  boys  succeeded  in  kindling  afire; 
but  the  enthusiastic  stoic  had  no  reason  to  complain  of 
want  of  appreciation  in  the  rest  of  the  party.  When 
we  were  descending,  he  told  us,  with  mingled  humor 
and  scorn,  of  a  party  of  ladies  he  once  led  to  the  top 
of  the  mountain  on  a  still  day,  who  began  immediately 
to  talk  about  the  fashions!  As  he  related  the  scene, 
stopping  and  facing  us  in  the  trail,  his  mild,  far-in 
eyes  came  to  the  front,  and  his  voice  rose  with  his 
language  to  a  kind  of  scream. 

"  Why,  there  they  were,  right  before  the  greatest 
view  they  ever  saw,  talkin'  about  the  fashions  /" 

Impossible  to  convey  the  accent  of  contempt  in 


C4  A   CHARACTER  STUDY 

which  he  pronounced  the  word  "fashions,"  and  then 
added,  with  a  sort  of  regretful  bitterness,  — 

"  I  was  a  great  mind  to  come  down,  and  leave  'em 
there." 

In  common  with  the  Greeks,  Old  Phelps  personi- 
fied the  woods,  mountains,  and  streams.  They  had 
not  only  personality,  but  distinctions  of  sex.  It  was 
something  beyond  the  characterization  of  the  hunter, 
which  appeared,  for  instance,  when  he  related  a  fight 
with  a  panther,  in  such  expressions  as,  "Then  Mr. 
Panther  thought  he  would  see  what  he  could  do,"  &o. 
He  was  in  "imaginative  sympathy"  with  all  wild 
things.  The  afternoon  we  descended  Marcy,  we  went 
away  to  the  west,  through  the  primeval  forests  toward 
Avalanche  and  Golden,  and  followed  the  course  of  the 
charming  Opalescent.  When  we  reached  the  leaping 
stream,  Phelps  exclaimed,  — 

"  Here  's  little  Miss  Opalescent !  " 

"  Why  don't  you  say  Mr.  Opalescent?  "  some  one 
asked. 

"  Oh,  she  's  too  pretty !  "  And  too  pretty  she 
was,  with  her  foam-white  and  rainbow  dress,  and  her 
downfalls,  and  fountain-like  uprising.  A  bewitching 
young  person  we  found  her  all  that  summer  after- 
noon. 

This  sylph-like  person  had  little  in  common  with  a 
monstrous  lady  whosa  adventures  in  the  wilderness 
Phelps  was  fond  of  relating.  She  was  built  something 
on  the  plan  of  the  mountains,  and  her  ambition  to 
explore  was  equal  to  her  size.  Phelps  and  the  other 
guides  once  succeeded  in  raising  her  to  the  top  of 
Marcy  ;  but  the  feat  of  getting  a  hogshead  of  molasses 
up  there  would  have  been  easier.  In  attempting  to 
give  us  an  idea  of  her  magnitude  that  night,  as  we 


A    CHARACTER  STUDY  65 

sat  in  the  forest  camp,  Phelps  hesitated  a  moment, 
while  he  cast  his  eye  around  the  woods :  "  Waal,  there 
ain't  no  tree  !  " 

It  is  only  by  recalling  fragmentary  remarks  and 
incidents  that  I  can  put  the  reader  in  possession  of 
the  peculiarities  of  my  subject ;  and  this  involves  the 
Drenching  of  things  out  of  their  natural  order  and 
continuity,  and  introducing  them  abruptly,  —  an  ab- 
ruptness illustrated  by  the  remark  of  "  Old  Man  Hos- 
kins,"  which  Phelps  liked  to  quote,  when  one  day  he 
suddenly  slipped  down  a  bank  into  a  thicket,  and 
seated  himself  in  a  wasps'  nest :  "  I  hain't  no  business 
here  ;  but  here  I  be  !  " 

The  first  time  we  went  into  camp  on  the  Upper 
Ausable  Pond,  which  has  been  justly  celebrated  as 
the  most  prettily  set  sheet  of  water  in  the  region,  we 
were  disposed  to  build  our  shanty  on  the  south  side, 
so  that  we  could  have  in  full  view  the  Gothics  and  that 
loveliest  of  mountain  contours.  To  our  surprise,  Old 
Pholps,  whose  sentimental  weakness  for  these  moun- 
tains we  knew,  opposed  this.  His  favorite  camping- 
ground  was  on  the  north  side,  —  a  pretty  site  in  itself, 
but  with  no  special  view.  In  order  to  enjoy  the  lovely 
mountains,  we  should  be  obliged  to  row  out  into  the 
lake :  we  wanted  them  always  before  our  eyes,  —  at 
sunrise  and  sunset,  and  in  the  blaze  of  noon.  With 
deliberate  speech,  as  if  weighing  our  arguments  and 
disposing  of  them,  he  replied,  "  Waal,  now,  them 
Gothics  ain't  the  kinder  scenery  you  want  ter  hog 
down ! " 

It  was  on  quiet  Sundays  in  the  woods,  or  in  talks 
oy  the  camp-fire,  that  Phelps  came  out  as  the  philoso- 
pher, and  commonly  contributed  the  light  of  his  obser- 
vations. Unfortunate  marriages,  and  marriages  in 


66  A    CHARACTER  STUDY 

general,  were,  on  one  occasion,  the  subject  of  discus- 
sion  ;  and  a  good  deal  of  darkness  had  been  cast  on 
it  by  various  speakers ;  when  Phelps  suddenly  piped 
up,  from  a  log  where  he  had  sat  silent,  almost  invis- 
ible, in  the  shadow  and  smoke,  — 

"  Waal,  now,  when  you  've  said  all  there  is  to  be 
said,  marriage  is  mostly  for  discipline." 

Discipline,  certainly,  the  old  man  had,  in  one  way 
or  another;  and  years  of  solitary  communing  in  the 
forest  had  given  him,  perhaps,  a  childlike  insight  into 
spiritual  concerns.  Whether  he  had  formulated  any 
creed  or  what  faith  he  had,  I  never  knew.  Keene 
Valley  had  a  reputation  of  not  ripening  Christians 
any  more  successfully  than  maize,  the  season  there 
being  short ;  and  on  our  first  visit  it  was  said  to  con- 
tain but  one  Bible  Christian,  though  I  think  an  accu- 
rate census  disclosed  three.  Old  Phelps,  who  some- 
times made  abrupt  remarks  in  trying  situations,  was 
not  included  in  this  census ;  but  he  was  the  disciple 
of  supernaturalism  in  a  most  charming  form.  I  have 
heard  of  his  opening  his  inmost  thoughts  to  a  lady,  one 
Sunday,  after  a  noble  sermon  of  Robertson's  had  been 
read  in  the  cathedral  stillness  of  the  forest.  His 
experience  was  entirely  first-hand,  and  related  with 
unconsciousness  that  it  was  not  common  to  all.  There 
was  nothing  of  the  mystic  or  the  sentimentalist,  only  a 
vivid  realism,  in  that  nearness  of  God  of  which  he 
spoke,  —  "  as  near  sometimes  as  those  trees,"  —  and 
of  the  holy  voice,  that,  in  a  time  of  inward  struggle, 
had  seemed  to  him  to  come  from  the  depths  of  the 
forest,  saying,  "  Poor  soul,  I  am  the  way." 

In  later  years  there  was  a  "  revival  "  in  Keene  Val- 
ley, the  result  of  which  was  a  number  of  young  "  con- 
verts," whom  Phelps  seemed  to  regard  as  a  veteran 


A    CHARACTER   STUDY  67 

uttight  raw  recruits,  and  to  have  his  doubts  what  sort 
of  soldiers  they  would  make. 

"  Waal,  Jimmy,"  he  said  to  one  of  them,  "  you  've 
kindled  a  pretty  good  fire  with  light  wood.  That 's 
what  we  do  of  a  dark  night  in  the  woods,  you  know  ; 
but  we  do  it  just  so  as  we  can  look  around  and  find  the 
solid  wood  :  so  now  put  on  your  solid  wood." 

In  the  Sunday  Bible-classes  of  the  period  Phelps 
was  a  perpetual  anxiety  to  the  others,  who  followed 
closely  the  printed  lessons,  and  beheld  with  alarm  his 
discursive  efforts  to  get  into  freer  air  and  light.  His 
remarks  were  the  most  refreshing  part  of  the  exercises, 
but  were  outside  of  the  safe  path  into  which  the  others 
thought  it  necessary  to  win  him  from  his  "  speckerla- 
tions.''  The  class  were  one  day  on  the  verses  concern- 
ing "  God's  word  "  being  "  written  on  the  heart,"  and 
were  keeping  close  to  the  shore,  under  the  guidance  of 
'  Barnes's  Notes,"  when  Old  Phelps  made  a  dive  to  the 
bottom,  and  remarked  that  he  had  "thought  a  good 
rleal  about  the  expression,  '  God's  word  written  on  the 
heart,'  and  had  been  asking  himself  how  that  was  to 
be  done  ;  and  suddenly  it  occurred  to  him,  having  been 
much  interested  lately  in  watching  the  work  of  a  pho- 
tographer, that,  when  a  photograph  is  going  to  be 
taken,  all  that  has  to  be  done  is  to  put  the  object  in 
position,  and  the  sun  makes  the  picture  ;  and  so  he 
rather  thought  that  all  we  had  got  to  do  was  to  put  our 
hearts  in  place,  and  God  would  do  the  writin'." 

Phelps's  theology,  like  his  science,  is  first-hand. 
In  the  woods,  one  day,  talk  ran  on  the  Trinity  as  being 
nowhere  asserted  as  a  doctrine  in  the  Bible,  and  some 
one  suggested  that  the  attempt  to  pack  these  great  and 
fluent  mysteries  into  one  word  must  always  be  more 
or  less  unsatisfactory  "  Ye-es"  droned  Phelps  :  "  I 


68  A   CHARACTER  STUDY 

never  could  see  much  speckerlation  in  that  expression 
the  Trinity.  Why,  they  'd  a  good  deal  better  say 
Legion." 

The  sentiment  of  the  man  about  nature,  or  his  poetic 
sensibility,  was  frequently  not  to  be  distinguished 
from  a  natural  religion,  and  was  always  tinged  with 
the  devoutness  of  Wordsworth's  verse..  Climbing 
slowly  one  day  up  the  Balcony,  —  he  was  more  than 
usually  calm  and  slow,  —  he  espied  an  exquisite  fragile 
flower  in  the  crevice  of  a  rock,  in  a  very  lonely  spot, 

"  It  seems  as  if,"  he  said,  or  rather  dreamed  out,— 
*'  it  seems  as  if  the  Creator  had  kept  something  just 
to  look  at  himself." 

To  a  lady  whom  he  had  taken  to  Ghapel  Pond,  a 
retired  but  rather  uninteresting  spot,  and  who  ex- 
pressed a  little  disappointment  at  its  tameness,  say 

ing>  — 

"  Why,  Mr.  Phelps,  the  principal  charm  of  this 
place  seems  to  be  its  loneliness,"  — 

"  Yes,"  he  replied  in  gentle  and  lingering  tones, 
"and  its  nativeness.  It  lies  here  just  where  it  was 
born." 

Rest  and  quiet  had  infinite  attractions  for  him.  A 
secluded  opening  in  the  woods  was  a  "  calm  spot." 
He  told  of  seeing  once,  or  rather  being  in,  a  circular 
rainbow.  He  stood  on  Indian  Head,  overlooking  the 
Lower  Lake,  so  that  he  saw  the  whole  bow  in  the  sky 
and  the  lake,  and  seemed  to  be  in  the  midst  of  it ; 
"only  at  one  place  there  was  an  indentation  in  it, 
where  it  rested  on  the  lake,  just  enough  to  keep  it  from 
rolling  off."  This  "  resting  "  of  the  sphere  seemed  to 
give  him  great  comfort. 

One  Indian-summer  morning  in  October,  some 
tadies  found  the  old  man  sitting  on  his  doorstep,  smok« 


69 

ing  a  short  pipe.  He  gave  no  sign  of  recognition  of 
their  approach,  except  a  twinkle  of  the  eye,  being  evi- 
dently quite  in  harmony  with  the  peaceful  day.  They 
stood  there  a  full  minute  before  he  opened  his  mouth  : 
then  he  did  not  rise,  but  slowly  took  his  pipe  from  his 
mouth,  and  said  in  a  dreamy  way,  pointing  towards 
the  brook,  — 

"  Do  you  see  that  tree  ?  "  indicating  a  maple  almost 
denuded  of  leaves,  which  lay  like  a  yellow  garment 
cast  at  its  feet.  "  I  've  been  watching  that  tree  all  the 
morning.  There  hain't  been  a  breath  of  wind :  but 
for  hours  the  leaves  have  been  falling,  falling,  just  as 
you  see  them  now  ;  and  at  last  it 's  pretty  much  bare." 
And  after  a  pause,  pensively :  "  Waal,  I  suppose  its 
hour  had  come." 

This  contemplative  habit  of  Old  Phelps  is  wholly 
unappreciated  by  his  neighbors ;  but  it  has  been  in- 
dulged in  no  inconsiderable  part  of  his  life.  Rising 
after  a  time,  he  said,  "  Now  I  want  you  to  go  with  me 
and  see  my  golden  city  I  've  talked  so  much  about.'* 
He  led  the  way  to  a  hill-outlook,  when  suddenly, 
emerging  from  the  forest,  the  spectators  saw  revealed 
the  winding  valley  and  its  stream.  He  said  quietly, 
"  There  is  my  golden  city."  Far  below,  at  their  feet, 
they  saw  that  vast  assemblage  of  birches  and  "  pop- 
ples," yellow  as  gold  in  the  brooding  noonday,  and 
slender  spires  rising  out  of  the  glowing  mass.  With- 
out another  word,  Phelps  sat  a  long  time  in  silent  con- 
tent :  it  was  to  him,  as  Bunyan  says,  "  a  place  desirous 
to  be  in." 

Is  this  philosopher  contented  with  what  life  has 
brought  him  ?  Speaking  of  money  one  day,  when  we 
had  asked  him  if  he  should  do  differently  if  he  had 
his  life  to  live  over  again,  he  said,  "  Yes,  but  not  about 


70  A    CHARACTER  STUDY 

money.  To  have  had  hours  such  as  I  have  had  in 
these  mountains,  and  with  such  men  as  Dr.  Bushnell 
and  Dr.  Shaw  and  Mr.  Twichell,  and  others  I  could 
name,  is  worth  all  the  money  the  world  could  give." 
He  read  character  very  well,  and  took  in  accurately 
the  boy  nature.  "  Tom,"  —  an  irrepressible,  rather 
overdone  specimen,  —  "  Tom  's  a  nice  kind  of  a  boy ; 
but  he 's  got  to  come  up  against  a  snubbin'-post  one 
of  these  days."  —  "  Boys !  "  he  once  said  :  "  you  can't 
git  boys  to  take  any  kinder  notice  of  scenery.  I  never 
yet  saw  a  boy  that  would  look  a  second  time  at  a  sun- 
set. Now,  a  girl  will  sometimes  ;  but  even  then  it 's 
instantaneous,  —  comes  and  goes  like  the  sunset.  As 
for  me,"  still  speaking  of  scenery,  "  these  mountains 
about  here,  that  I  see  every  day,  are  no  more  to  me,  in 
one  sense,  than  a  man's  farm  is  to  Viim.  What  mostly 
interests  me  now  is  when  I  see  some  new  freak  or  shape 
in  the  face  of  Nature." 

In  literature  it  may  be  said  that  Old  Phelps  prefers 
the  best  in  the  very  limited  range  that  has  been  open 
to  him.  Tennyson  is  his  favorite  among  poets ;  an 
affinity  explained  by  the  fact  that  they  are  both  lotos- 
eaters.  Speaking  of  a  lecture-room  talk  of  Mr. 
Beecher's  which  he  had  read,  he  said,  "  It  filled  my 
cup  about  as  full  as  I  callerlate  to  have  it :  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  truth  in  it,  and  some  poetry  ;  waal,  and 
a  little  spice  too.  We  've  got  to  have  the  spice,  you 
know."  He  admired,  for  different  reasons,  a  lecture 
by  Greeley  that  he  once  heard,  into  which  so  much 
knowledge  of  various  kinds  was  crowded,  that  he  said 
he  "  made  a  reg'lar  gobble  of  it."  He  was  not  with- 
out discrimination,  which  he  exercised  upon  the  local 
preaching  when  nothing  better  offered.  Of  one  ser- 
mon he  said,  "The  man  began  way  back  at  the  cre« 


A   CHARACTER  STUDY  71 

ation,  and  just  preached  right  along  down ;  and  he 
did  n't  say  nothing,  after  all.  It  just  seemed  to  me  as 
if  he  was  tryin'  to  git  up  a  kind  of  a  fix-up." 

Old  Phelps  used  words  sometimes  like  algebraic 
signs,  and  had  a  habit  of  making  one  do  duty  for  a 
season  together  for  all  occasions.  "  Speckerlatiou  " 
and  "  callerlation  "  and  "  fix  up "  are  specimens  of 
words  that  were  prolific  in  expression.  An  unusual 
expression,  or  an  unusual  article,  would  be  character- 
ized as  a  "  kind  of  a  scientific  literary  git-up." 

"What  is  the  programme  for  to-morrow?"  I  once 
asked  him.  "  Waal,  I  callerlate,  if  they  rig  up  the 
callerlation  they  callerlate  on,  we  '11  go  to  the  Boreas." 
Starting  out  for  a  day's  tramp  in  the  woods,  he  would 
ask  whether  we  wanted  to  take  a  "  reg'lar  walk,  or  a 
random  scoot,"  -  -  the  latter  being  a  plunge  into  the 
pathless  forest.  When  he  was  on  such  an  expedition, 
and  became  entangled  in  dense  brush,  and  maybe  a 
network  of  "  slash  "  and  swamp,  he  was  like  an  old 
wizard,  as  he  looked  here  and  there,  seeking  a  way, 
peering  into  the  tangle,  or  withdrawing  from  a  thicket, 
and  muttering  to  himself,  "  There  ain't  no  speckerla- 
tion  there."  And  when  the  way  became  altogether 
inscrutable,  "  Waal,  this  is  a  reg'lar  random  scoot 
of  a  rigmarole."  As  some  one  remarked,  "  The  dic- 
tionary in  his  hands  is  like  clay  in  the  hands  of  the 
potter."  A  petrifaction  was  a  "  kind  of  a  hard-wood 
chemical  git-up." 

There  is  no  conceit,  we  are  apt  to  say,  like  that  born 
of  isolation  from  the  world,  and  there  are  no  such  con- 
ceited people  as  those  who  have  lived  all  their  lives  in 
the  woods.  Phelps  was,  however,  unsophisticated  in 
his  until  the  advent  of  strangers  into  his  life,  who 
brought  in  literature  and  various  other  disturbing 


72  A    CHARACTER  STUDY 

influences.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  the  effect  has  been 
to  take  off  something  of  the  bloom  of  his  simplicity, 
and  to  elevate  him  into  an  oracle.  I  suppose  this 
is  inevitable  as  soon  as  one  goes  into  print;  and 
Phelps  has  gone  into  print  in  the  local  papers.  He 
has  been  bitten  with  the  literary  "  git-up."  Justly 
regarding  most  of  the  Adirondack  literature  as  a 
"  perfect  fizzle,"  he  has  himself  projected  a  work,  and 
written  much  on  the  natural  history  of  his  region. 
Long  ago  he  made  a  large  map  of  the  mountain  coun- 
try ;  and,  until  recent  surveys,  it  was  the  only  one 
that  could  lay  any  claim  to  accuracy.  His  history  is 
no  doubt  original  in  form,  and  unconventional  in, 
expression.  Like  most  of  the  writers  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  the  court  ladies  and  gentlemen  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  he  is  an  independent  speller. 
Writing  of  his  work  on  the  Adirondacks,  he  says,  "  If 
I  should  ever  live  to  get  this  wonderful  thing  written, 
I  expect  it  will  show  one  thing,  if  no  more  ;  and  that 
is,  that  everything  has  an  opposite.  I  expect  to  show 
in  this  that  literature  has  an  opposite,  if  I  do  not  show 
anything  else.  We  could  not  enjoy  the  blessings  and 
happiness  of  riteousness  if  we  did  not  know  innicuty 
was  in  the  world  :  in  fact,  there  would  be  no  riteous- 
ness without  innicuty."  Writing  also  of  his  great 
enjoyment  of  being  in  the  woods,  especially  since  he 
has  had  the  society  there  of  some  people  he  names,  he 
adds,  "  And  since  I  have  Literature,  Siance,  and  Art 
all  spread  about  on  the  green  moss  of  the  mountain, 
woods  or  the  gravell  banks  of  a  cristle  stream,  il 
seems  like  finding  roses,  honeysuckels,  and  violets  on 
a  crisp  brown  cliff  in  December.  You  know  I  don't 
believe  much  in  the  religion  of  seramony ;  but  any 
riteous  thing  that  has  life  and  spirit  in  it  is  food  for 


A    CHARACTER  STUDY  73 

me."  I  must  not  neglect  to  mention  an  essay,  con- 
tinued in  several  numbers  of  his  local  paper,  on  "  The 
Growth  of  the  Tree,"  in  which  he  demolishes  the  the- 
ory of  Mr.  Greeley,  whom  he  calls  "  one  of  the  best 
vegetable  philosophers,"  about  "  growth  without  seed." 
He  treats  of  the  office  of  sap.  "  All  trees  have  some 
kind  of  sap  and  some  kind  of  operation  of  sap  flowing 
in  their  season,"  —  the  dissemination  of  seeds,  the  pro- 
cesses of  growth,  the  power  of  healing  wounds,  the  pro- 
portion of  roots  to  branches,  &c.  Speaking  of  the 
latter,  he  says,  "  I  have  thought  it  would  be  one  of  the 
greatest  curiosities  on  earth  to  see  a  thrifty  growing 
maple  or  elm,  that  had  grown  on  a  deep  soil  interval 
to  be  two  feet  in  diameter,  to  be  raised  clear  into  the 
air  with  every  root  and  fibre  down  to  the  minutest 
thread,  all  entirely  cleared  of  soil,  so  that  every  par- 
ticle could  be  seen  in  its  natural  position.  I  think  it 
would  astonish  even  the  wise  ones."  From  his  instinc- 
tive sympathy  with  nature,  he  often  credits  vegetable 
organism  with  "  instinctive  judgment."  "  Observa- 
tion teaches  us  that  a  tree  is  given  powerful  instincts, 
which  would  almost  appear  to  amount  to  judgment  in 
some  cases,  to  provide  for  its  own  wants  and  necessi- 
ties." 

Here  our  study  must  cease.     When  the  primitive 
man  comes  into  literature,  he  is  no  longer  primitive. 


CAMPING  OUT 


IT  seems  to  be  agreed  that  civilization  is  kept  up 
only  by  a  constant  effort.  Nature  claims  its  own 
speedily  when  the  effort  is  relaxed.  If  you  clear  a 
patch  of  fertile  ground  in  the  forest,  uproot  the  stumps 
and  plant  it,  year  after  year,  in  potatoes  and  maize, 
you  say  you  have  subdued  it.  But  if  you  leave  it 
for  a  season  or  two,  a  kind  of  barbarism  seems  to  steal 
out  upon  it  from  the  circling  woods ;  coarse  grass  and 
brambles  cover  it ;  bushes  spring  up  in  a  wild  tangle ; 
the  raspberry  and  the  blackberry  flower  and  fruit, 
and  the  humorous  bear  feeds  upon  them.  The  last 
state  of  the  ground  is  worse  than  the  first 

Perhaps  the  cleared  spot  is  called  Ephesus. 
There  is  a  splendid  city  on  the  plain ;  there  are  tem- 
ples and  theatres  on  the  hills  ;  the  commerce  of  the 
world  seeks  its  port ;  the  luxury  of  the  Orient  flows 
through  its  marble  streets.  You  are  there  one  day 
when  the  sea  has  receded :  the  plain  is  a  pestilent 
marsn  ;  the  temples,  the  theatres,  the  lofty  gates,  nave 
sunken  and  crumbled,  and  the  wild-brier  runs  over 
them ;  and,  as  you  grow  pensive  in  the  most  desolate 
place  in  the  world,  a  bandit  lounges  out  of  a  tomb, 
and  offers  to  relieve  you  of  all  that  which  creates  arti- 
ficial distinctions  in  society.  The  higher  the  civil- 
ization has  risen,  the  more  abject  is  the  desolation 
of  barbarism  that  ensues.  The  most  melancholy  spot 


CAMPING   OUT  75 

in  the  Adirondacks  is  not  a  tamarack-swamp,  where 
the  traveller  wades  in  moss  and  mire,  and  the  at- 
mosphere is  composed  of  equal  active  parts  of  black- 
*lies,  mosquitos,  and  midges.  It  is  the  village  of  the 
Adirondack  Iron-Works,  where  the  streets  of  gaunt 
houses  are  falling  to  pieces,  tenantless;  the  factory 
wheels  have  stopped  ;  the  furnaces  are  in  ruins  ;  the 
iron  and  wooden  machinery  is  strewn  about  in  help- 
less detachment ;  and  heaps  of  charcoal,  ore,  and  slag 
proclaim  an  arrested  industry.  Beside  this  deserted 
village,  even  Calamity  Pond,  shallow,  sedgy,  with  its 
ragged  shores  of  stunted  firs,  and  its  melancholy  shaft 
that  marks  the  spot  where  the  proprietor  of  the  iron- 
works accidentally  shot  himself,  is  cheerful. 

The  instinct  of  barbarism  that  leads  people  periodi- 
cally to  throw  away  the  habits  of  civilization,  and 
seek  the  freedom  and  discomfort  of  the  woods,  is  ex- 
plicable enough ;  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  understand 
why  this  passion  should  be  strongest  in  those  who 
are  most  refined,  and  most  trained  in  intellectual 
and  social  fastidiousness.  Philistinism  and  shoddy 
do  not  like  the  woods,  unless  it  becomes  fashionable 
to  do  so  ;  and  then,  as  speedily  as  possible  they  in- 
troduce their  artificial  luxuries,  and  reduce  the  life  in 
the  wilderness  to  the  vulgarity  of  a  well-fed  picnic. 
It  is  they  who  have  strewn  fche  Adirondacks  with 
paper  collars  and  tin  cans.  The  real  enjoyment  of 
camping  and  tramping  in  the  woods  lies  in  a  return 
to  primitive  conditions  of  lodging,  dress,  and  food,  in 
as  total  an  escape  as  may  be  from  the  requirements  of 
civilization.  And  it  remains  to  be  explained  why  this 
is  enjoyed  most  by  those  who  are  most  highly  civilized. 
It  is  wonderful  to  see  how  easily  the  restraints  of  so- 
ciety fall  off.  Of  course  it  is  not  true  that  courtesy 


76  CAMPING  OUT 

depends  upon  clothes  with  the  best  people  ;  but,  with 
others,  behavior  hangs  almost  entirely  upon  dress, 
Many  good  habits  are  easily  got  rid  of  in  the  woods. 
Dcubt  sometimes  seems  to  be  felt  whether  Sunday  is  a 
legal  holiday  there.  It  becomes  a  question  of  casuistry 
with  a  clergyman  whether  he  may  shoot  at  a  mark  on 
Sunday,  if  none  of  his  congregation  are  present.  He 
intends  no  harm  :  he  only  gratifies  a  curiosity  to  see  K 
he  can  hit  the  mark.  Where  shall  he  draw  the  line  ^ 
Doubtless  he  might  throw  a  stone  at  a  chipmunk  or 
shout  at  a  loon.  Might  lie  fire  at  a  mark  with  an 
air-gun  that  makes  no  noise?  He  will  not  fish  or 
hunt  on  Sunday  (although  he  is  no  more  likely  to 
catch  anything  that  day  than  on  any  other)  ;  but 
may  he  eat  trout  that  the  guide  has  caught  on  Sun- 
day, if  the  guide  swears  he  caught  them  Saturday 
Eight  ?  Is  there  such  a  thing  as  a  vacation  in  reli- 
gion ?  How  much  of  our  virtue  do  we  owe  to  inher- 
ited habita  ? 

I  am  not  at  all  sure  whether  this  desire  to  camp 
outside  of  civilization  is  creditable  to  human  nature? 
or  otherwise.  We  hear  sometimes  that  the  Turk  has 
been  merely  camping  for  four  centuries  in  Europe. 
I  suspect  that  many  of  us  are,  after  all,  really  camp- 
ing temporarily  in  civilized  conditions ;  and  that 
going  into  the  wilderness  is  an  escape,  longed  for, 
into  our  natural  and  preferred  state.  Consider  what 
this  "camping  out"  is,  that  is  confessedly  so  agreeable 
to  people  most  delicately  reared.  I  have  no  desire 
to  exaggerate  its  delights. 

The  Adirondack  wilderness  is  essentially  unbroken. 
A  few  bad  roads  that  penetrate  it,  a  few  jolting 
wagons  that  traverse  them,  a  few  barn-like  boarding- 
houses  on  the  edge  of  the  forest,  where  the  boarder* 


CAMPING   OUT  77 

are  soothed  by  patent  coffee,  and  stimulated  to  unnat- 
ural gayety  by  Japan  tea,  and  experimented  on  by 
unique  cookery,  do  little  to  destroy  the  savage  fascina- 
tion of  the  region.  In  half  an  hour,  at  any  point,  one 
jan  put  himself  into  solitude  and  every  desirable  dis« 
comfort.  The  party  that  covets  the  experience  of  the 
camp  comes  down  to  primitive  conditions  of  dress  an,I 
equipment.  There  are  guides  and  porters  to  carry 
the  blankets  for  beds,  the  raw  provisions,  and  the 
camp  equipage  ;  and  the  motley  party  of  the  tempo- 
rarily decivilized  files  into  the  woods,  and  begins,  per- 
haps by  a  road,  perhaps  on  a  trail,  its  exhilarating  and 
weary  march.  The  exhilaration  arises  partly  from 
the  casting  aside  of  restraint,  partly  from  the  adven- 
ture of  exploration ;  and  the  weariness,  from  the  in- 
terminable toil  of  bad  walking,  a  heavy  pack,  and  the 
grim  monotony  of  ti'ees  and  bushes,  that  shut  out  all 
prospect,  except  an  occasional  glimpse  of  the  sky. 
Mountains  are  painfully  climbed,  streams  forded, 
lonesome  lakes  paddled  over,  long  and  muddy  "  car- 
ries "  traversed.  Fancy  this  party  the  victim  of  polit- 
ical exile,  banished  by  the  law,  and  a  more  sorrowful 
march  could  not  be  imagined ;  but  the  voluntary 
hardship  becomes  pleasure,  and  it  is  undeniable  that 
the  spirits  of  the  party  rise  as  the  difficulties  increase., 
For  this  straggling  and  stumbling  band  the  world  is 
young  again  :  it  has  come  to  the  beginning  of  things  ; 
ic  has  cut  loose  from  tradition,  and  is  free  to  make  £ 
home  anywhere :  the  movement  has  all  the  promise  of 
a  revolution.  All  this  virginal  freshness  invites  the 
primitive  instincts  of  play  and  disorder.  The  free 
range  of  the  forests  suggests  endless  possibilities  of 
exploration  and  possession.  Perhaps  we  are  treading 
where  man  since  the  creation  never  trod  before ;  per- 


78  CAMPING  OUT 

haps  the  waters  of  this  bubbling  spring,  which  we 
deepen  by  scraping  out  the  decayed  leaves  and  the 
black  earth,  have  never  been  tasted  before,  except  by 
the  wild  denizens  of  these  woods.  We  cross  the  trails 
j)f  lurking  animals,  —  paths  that  heighten  our  sense 
of  seclusion  from  the  world.  The  hammering  of  the 
infrequent  woodpecker,  the  call  of  the  lonely  bird,  the 
drumming  of  the  solitary  partridge,  —  all  these  sounds 
do  but  emphasize  the  lonesoineness  of  nature.  The 
roar  of  the  mountain  brook,  dashing  over  its  bed  of 
pebbles,  rising  out  of  the  ravine,  and  spreading,  as  it 
were,  a  mist  of  sound  through  all  the  forest  (contin- 
uous beating  waves  that  have  the  rhythm  of  eternity 
in  them),  and  the  fitful  movement  of  the  air-tides 
through  the  balsams  and  firs  and  the  giant  pines,  — 
how  these  grand  symphonies  shut  out  the  little  exas- 
perations of  our  vexed  life !  It  seems  easy  to  begin 
life  over  again  on  the  simplest  terms.  Probably  it  is 
not  so  much  the  desire  of  the  congregation  to  escape 
from  the  preacher,  or  of  the  preacher  to  escape  from 
himself,  that  drives  sophisticated  people  into  the  wil- 
derness, as  it  is  the  unconquered  craving  for  primitive 
simplicity,  the  revolt  against  the  everlasting  dress< 
parade  of  our  civilization.  From  this  monstrous  pom- 
posity even  the  artificial  rusticity  of  a  Petit  Trianon 1 
is  a  relief.  It  was  only  human  nature  that  the  jaded 
Frenchman  of  the  regency  should  run  away  to  the 
New  World,  and  live  in  a  forest-hut  with  an  Indiai- 
squaw  ;  although  he  found  little  satisfaction  in  his  act 
of  heroism,  unless  it  was  talked  about  at  Versailles. 

When  our  trampers  come,  late  in  the  afternoon,  to 
the  bank  of  a  lovely  lake  where  they  purpose  to  enter 
the  primitive  life,  everything  is  waiting  for  them  in 

1  A  little  palace  near  the  royal  one  at  Versailles. 


CAMPING   OUT  79 

virgin  expectation.  There  is  a  little  promontory  jut- 
ting into  the  lake,  and  sloping  down  to  a  sandy  beach, 
on  which  the  waters  idly  lapse,  and  shoals  of  red-fins 
and  shiners  come  to  greet  the  stranger ;  the  forest  is 
untouched  by  the  axe ;  the  tender  green  sweeps  the 
water's  edge ;  ranks  of  slender  firs  are  marshalled  by 
the  shore  ;  clumps  of  white-birch  stems  shine  in  satir 
purity  among  the  evergreens ;  the  boles  of  giant 
spruces,  maples,  and  oaks,  lifting  high  their  crowns  of 
foliage,  stretch  away  in  endless  galleries  and  arcades  ; 
through  the  shifting  leaves  the  sunshine  falls  upon 
the  brown  earth  ;  overhead  are  fragments  of  blue  sky ; 
under  the  boughs  and  in  chance  openings  appear  the 
bluer  lake  and  the  outline  of  the  gracious  mountains. 
The  discoverers  of  this  paradise,  which  they  have  en- 
tered to  destroy,  note  the  babbling  of  the  brook  that 
flows  close  at  hand  ;  they  hear  the  splash  of  the  leap- 
ing fish ;  they  listen  to  the  sweet,  metallic  song  of  the 
evening  thrush,  and  the  chatter  of  the  red  squirrel, 
who  angrily  challenges  their  right  to  be  there.  But 
the  moment  of  sentiment  passes.  This  party  has  come 
here  to  eat  and  to  sleep,  and  not  to  encourage  Nature 
in  her  poetic  attitudinizing. 

The  spot  for  a  shanty  is  selected.  This  side  shall 
be  its  opening,  towards  the  lake ;  and  in  front  of  it 
the  fire,  so  that  the  smoke  shall  drift  into  the  hut,  and 
discourage  the  mosquitoes  ;  yonder  shall  be  the  cook's 
fire  and  the  path  to  the  spring.  The  whole  colony 
bestir  themselves  in  the  foundation  of  a  new  home,  — 
an  enterprise  that  has  all  the  fascination,  and  none  of 
the  danger,  of  a  veritable  new  settlement  in  the  wil- 
derness. The  axes  of  the  guides  resound  in  the  echo- 
ing spaces  ;  great  trunks  fall  with  a  crash  ;  vistas  are 
opened  towards  the  lake  and  the  mountains.  The 


80  CAMPING   OUT 

spot  for  the  shanty  is  cleared  of  underbrusb;  forked 
stakes  are  driven  into  the  ground,  cross-pieces  are 
laid  on  them,  and  poles  sloping  back  to  the  ground. 
In  an  incredible  space  of  time  there  is  the  skeleton  of 
a  house,  which  is  entirely  open  in  front.  The  roof 
and  sides  must  be  covered.  For  this  purpose  the 
trunks  of  great  spruces  are  skinned.  The  woodman 
rims  the  bark  near  the  foot  of  the  tree,  and  again  six 
feet  above,  and  slashes  it  perpendicularly  ;  then,  with 
a  blunt  stick,  he  crowds  off  this  thick  hide  exactly  as 
an  ox  is  skinned.  It  needs  but  a  few  of  these  skins 
to  cover  the  roof ;  and  they  make  a  perfectly  water- 
tight roof,  except  when  it  rains.  Meantime,  busy 
hands  have  gathered  boughs  of  the  spruce  and  the 
leathery  balsam,  and  shingled  the  ground  underneath 
the  shanty  for  a  bed.  It  is  an  aromatic  bed  :  in  the- 
ory  it  is  elastic  and  consoling.  Upon  it  are  spread 
the  blankets.  The  sleepers,  of  all  sexes  and  ages,  are 
to  lie  there  in  a  row,  their  feet  to  the  fire,  and  their 
heads  under  the  edge  of  the  sloping  roof.  Nothing 
could  be  better  contrived.  The  fire  is  in  front :  it  is 
not  a  fire,  but  a  conflagration  —  a  vast  heap  of  green 
logs  set  on  fire  —  of  pitch,  and  split  dead-wood,  and 
crackling  balsams,  raging  and  roaring.  By  the  time 
twilight  falls,  the  cook  has  prepared  supper.  Every- 
thing has  been  cooked  in  a  tin  pail  and  a  skillet,  •— 
potatoes,  tea,  pork,  mutton,  slapjacks.  You  wonder 
how  everything  could  have  been  prepared  in  so  few 
utensils.  When  you  eat,  the  wonder  ceases  :  every- 
thing might  have  been  cooked  in  one  pail.  It  is  a 
noble  meal ;  and  nobly  is  it  disposed  of  by  these  ama- 
teur savages,  sitting  about  upon  logs  and  roots  of 
trees.  Never  were  there  such  potatoes,  never  beans 
that  seemed  to  have  more  of  the  bean  in  them. 


CAMPING  OUT  81 

never  such  curly  pork,  never  trout  with  more  In- 
dian-meal on  them,  never  mutton  more  distinctly 
sheepy ;  and  the  tea,  drunk  out  of  a  tin  cup,  with  a 
lump  of  maple-sugar  dissolved  in  it,  —  it  is  the  sort 
of  tea  that  takes  hold,  lifts  the  hair,  and  disposes  the 
drinker  to  anecdote  and  hilariousness.  There  is  no 
.deception  about  it :  it  tastes  of  tannin  and  spruce  and 
creosote.  Everything,  in  short,  has  the  flavor  of  the 
wilderness  and  a  free  life.  It  is  idyllic.  And  yet, 
with  all  our  sentimentality,  there  is  nothing  feeble 
about  the  cooking.  The  slapjacks  are  a  solid  job  of 
work,  made  to  last,  and  not  go  to  pieces  in  a  per- 
son's stomach  like  a  trivial  bun  :  we  might  record  on 
them,  in  cuneiform  characters,  our  incipient  civiliza- 
tion ;  and  future  generations  would  doubtless  turn 
them  up  as  Acadian  bricks.  Good,  robust  victuals 
are  what  the  primitive  man  wants. 

Darkness  falls  suddenly.  Outside  the  ring  of  light 
from  our  conflagration  the  woods  are  black.  There 
is  a  tremendous  impression  of  isolation  and  lonesome- 
ness  in  our  situation.  We  are  the  prisoners  of  the 
night.  The  woods  never  seemed  so  vast  and  mysteri- 
ous. The  trees  are  gigantic.  There  are  noises  that 
we  do  not  understand,  —  mysterious  winds  passing 
overhead,  and  rambling  in  the  great  galleries,  tree- 
trunks  grinding  against  each  other,  undefinable  stirs 
and  uneasinesses.  The  shapes  of  those  who  pass  into 
the  dimness  are  outlined  in  monstrous  proportions. 
The  spectres,  seated  about  in  the  glare  of  the  fire, 
talk  about  appearances  and  presentiments  and  reli- 
gion. The  guides  cheer  the  night  with  bear-fights, 
and  catamount  encounters,  and  frozen-to-death  expe- 
riences, and  simple  tales  of  great  prolixity  and  no 
|) oint,  and  jokes  of  primitive  lucidity.  We  hear  <iata- 


82  CAMPING  OUT 

mounts,  and  the  stealthy  tread  of  things  in  the  leaves, 
and  the  hooting  of  owls,  and,  when  the  moon  rises, 
the  laughter  of  the  loon.  Everything  is  strange^ 
spectral,  fascinating. 

By  and  by  we  get  our  positions  in  the  shanty  for 
the  night,  and  arrange  the  row  of  sleepers.  The 
shanty  has  become  a  smoke-house  by  this  time: 
waves  of  smoke  roll  into  it  from  the  fire.  It  is  only 
by  lying  down,  and  getting  the  head  well  under  the 
eaves,  that  one  can  breathe.  No  one  can  find  her 
"  things ;  "  nobody  has  a  pillow.  At  length  the  row 
is  laid  out,  with  the  solemn  protestation  of  intention 
to  sleep.  The  wind,  shifting,  drives  away  the  smoke. 
Good-night  is  said  a  hundred  times  ;  positions  are  re- 
adjusted, more  last  words,  new  shifting  about,  final 
remarks ;  it  is  all  so  comfortable  and  romantic ;  and 
then  silence.  Silence  continues  for  a  minute.  The 
fire  flashes  up  ;  all  the  row  of  heads  is  lifted  up  simul- 
taneously to  watch  it ;  showers  of  sparks  sail  aloft  into 
the  blue  night ;  the  vast  vault  of  greenery  is  a  fairy 
spectacle.  How  the  sparks  mount  and  twinkle  and 
disappear  like  tropical  fire-flies,  and  all  the  leaves 
murmur,  and  clap  their  hands !  Some  of  the  sparks 
do  not  go  out :  we  see  them  flaming  in  the  sky  when 
the  flame  of  the  fire  has  died  down.  Well,  good- 
night, good-night.  More  folding  of  the  arms  to 
sleep  -,  more  grumbling  about  the  hardness  of  a  hand- 
bag, or  the  insufficiency  of  a  pocket-handkerchief,  for 
&  pillow.  Good-night.  Was  that  a  remark  ?  — 
Something  about  a  root,  a  stub  in  the  ground  sticking 
into  the  back.  "  You  could  n't  lie  along  a  hair?  "  — 
*'  Well,  no :  here 's  another  stub."  It  needs  but  a 
moment  for  the  conversation  to  become  general,  — • 
about  roots  under  the  shoulder,  stubs  in  the  back,  a 


CAMPING   OUT  83 

ridge  on  which  it  is  impossible  for  the  sleeper  to  bal- 
ance, the  non-elasticity  of  boughs,  the  hardness  of  the 
ground,  the  heat,  the  smoke,  the  chilly  air.  Subjects 
of  remarks  multiply.  The  whole  camp  is  awake,  and 
chattering  like  an  aviary.  The  owl  is  also  awake; 
but  the  guides  who  are  asleep  outside  make  more 
noise  than  the  owls.  Water  is  wanted,  and  is  handed 
about  in  a  dipper.  Everybody  is  yawning;  every- 
body is  now  determined  to  go  to  sleep  in  good  ear- 
nest. A  last  good-night.  There  is  an  appalling 
silence.  It  is  interrupted  in  the  most  natural  way 
in  the  world.  Somebody  has  got  the  start,  and  gone 
to  sleep.  He  proclaims  the  fact.  He  seems  to  have 
been  brought  up  on  the  seashore,  and  to  know  how 
to  make  all  the  deep-toned  noises  of  the  restless 
ocean.  He  is  also  like  a  war-horse ;  or,  it  is  sug 
gested,  like  a  saw-horse.  How  malignantly  he  snorts* 
and  breaks  off  short,  and  at  once  begins  again  in  an= 
other  key !  One  head  is  raised  after  another. 

"Who  is  that?" 

"  Somebody  punch  him." 

"  Turn  him  over." 

"  Reason  with  him." 

The  sleeper  is  turned  over.  The  turn  was  a  mis 
take.  He  was  before,  it  appears,  on  his  most  agree- 
able side.  The  camp  rises  in  indignation.  The  sleeper 
sits  up  in  bewilderment.  Before  he  can  go  off  again, 
two  or  three  others  have  preceded  him.  They  are  all 
alike.  You  can  never  judge  what  a  person  is  when 
he  is  awake.  There  are  here  half  a  dozen  disturbers 
of  the  peace  who  should  be  put  in  solitary  confine- 
ment. At  midnight,  when  a  philosopher  crawls  out 
to  sit  on  a  log  by  the  fire,  and  smoke  a  pipe,  a  duet  in 
tenor  and  mezzo-soprano  is  going  on  in  the  shanty, 


84  CAMPING   OUT 

with  a  chorus  always  ooming  in  at  the  wrong  time. 
Those  who  are  not  asleep  waiit  to  know  why  the 
smoker  does  n't  go  to  bed.  He  is  requested  to  get 
some  water,  to  throw  on  another  log,  to  see  what  time 
it  is,  to  note  whether  it  looks  like  rain.  A  buzz  of 
conversation  arises.  She  is  sure  sh$  heard  something 
behind  the  shanty.  He  says  it  is  all  nonsense.  "Per- 
haps, however,  it  might  be  a  mouse." 

"  Mercy !     Are  there  mice  ?  " 

"  Plenty." 

"  Then  that 's  what  I  heard  nibbling  by  my  head.  1 
sha'n't  sleep  a  wink !  Do  they  bite  ?  " 

"No,  they  nibble;  scarcely  ever  take  a  full  bite 
out." 

"It's  horrid!" 

Towards  morning  it  grows  chilly ;  the  guides  have 
let  the  fire  go  out ;  the  blankets  will  slip  down.  Anx- 
iety begins  to  be  expressed  about  the  dawn. 

"  What  time  does  the  sun  rise  ?  " 

"Awful  early.     Did  you  sleep ?" 

"  Not  a  wink.     And  you  ?  " 

"  In  spots.  I  'm  going  to  dig  up  this  root  as  soon 
as  it  is  light  enough." 

"  See  that  mist  on  the  lake,  and  the  light  just  com- 
ing on  the  Gothics !  I  'd  no  idea  it  was  so  cold  :  all 
the  first  part  of  the  night  I  was  roasted." 

"  What  were  they  talking  about  all  night  ?  " 

When  the  party  crawls  out  to  the  early  breakfast, 
after  it  has  washed  its  faces  in  the  lake,  it  is  disor- 
ganized, but  cheerful.  Nobody  admits  much  sleep  j 
but  everybody  is  refreshed,  and  declares  it  delightful. 
It  is  the  fresh  air  all  night  that  invigorates  ;  or  maybe 
it  is  the  tea  or  the  slapjacks.  The  guides  have  erected 
a  table  of  spruce  bark,  with  benches  at  the  sides ;  so 


CAMPING  OUT  85 

that  breakfast  is  taken  in  form.  It  is  served  on  tin 
plates  and  oak  chips.  After  breakfast  begins  the 
day's  work.  It  may  be  a  mountain-climbing  expedi- 
tion, or  rowing  and  angling  in  the  lake,  or  fishing  for 
trout  in  some  stream  two  or  three  miles  distant.  No- 
body can  stir  far  from  camp  without  a  guide  Ham- 
mocks are  swung,  bowers  are  built,  novel-reading  be- 
gins, worsted  work  appears,  cards  are  shuffled  and 
dealt.  The  day  passes  in  absolute  freedom  from  re- 
sponsibility to  one's  self.  At  night,  when  the  expedi- 
tions return,  the  camp  resumes  its  animation.  Adven- 
tures are  recounted,  every  statement  of  the  narrator 
being  disputed  and  argued.  Everybody  has  become 
an  adept  in  wood-craft ;  but  nobody  credits  his  neigh' 
bor  with  like  instinct.  Society  getting  resolved  into 
its  elements,  confidence  is  gone. 

Whilst  the  hilarious  party  are  at  supper,  a  drop  or 
two  of  rain  falls.  The  head  guide  is  appealed  to.  Is 
it  going  to  rain  ?  He  says  it  does  rain.  But  will  it 
be  a  rainy  night  ?  The  guide  goes  down  to  the  lake, 
looks  at  the  sky,  and  concludes  that  if  the  wind  shifts 
a  p'int  more,  there  is  no  telling  what  sort  of  weather 
we  shall  have.  Meantime  the  drops  patter  thicker  on 
the  leaves  overhead,  and  the  leaves,  in  turn,  pass  the 
wai;er  down  to  the  table;  the  sky  darkens  i  the  wind 
rises  ;  there  is  a  kind  of  shiver  in  the  woods  ;  and  we 
scud  away  into  the  shanty,  taking  the  remains  of  our 
supper,  and  eating  it  as  best  we  can.  The  rain  in- 
creases. The  fire  sputters  and  fumes.  All  the  trees 
are  dripping,  dripping,  and  the  ground  is  wet.  We 
cannot  step  out-doors  without  getting  a  drenching. 
Like  sheep,  we  are  penned  in  the  little  hut,  where  no 
one  can  stand  erect.  The  rain  swirls  into  the  open 
front,  and  wets  the  bottom  oi  the  blankets.  The 


86  CAMPING  OUT 

smoke  drives  in.  We  curl  up,  and  enjoy  ourselves. 
The  guides  at  length  conclude  that  it  is  going  to  be 
damp.  The  dismal  situation  sets  us  all  into  good 
spirits ;  and  it  is  later  than  the  night  before  when  we 
crawl  under  our  blankets,  sure  this  time  of  a  sound 
sleep,  lulled  by  the  storm  and  the  rain  resounding  on 
the  bark  roof.  How  much  better  off  we  are  than 
many  a  shelterless  wretch !  We  are  as  snug  as  dry 
herrings.  At  the  moment,  however,  of  dropping  off 
to  sleep,  somebody  unfortunately  notes  a  drop  of  wa- 
ter on  his  face ;  this  is  followed  by  another  drop ;  in 
an  instant  a  stream  is  established.  He  moves  his 
head  to  a  dry  place.  Scarcely  has  he  done  so,  when 
he  feels  a  dampness  in  his  back.  Beaching  his  hand 
outside,  he  finds  a  puddle  of  water  soaking  through 
his  blanket.  By  this  time,  somebody  inquires  if  it  is 
possible  that  the  roof  leaks.  One  man  has  a  stream 
of  water  under  him ;  another  says  it  is  coming  into 
his  ear.  The  roof  appears  to  be  a  discriminating 
sieve.  Those  who  are  dry  see  no  need  of  such  a  fuss. 
The  man  in  the  corner  spreads  his  umbrella,  and  the 
protective  measure  is  resented  by  his  neighbor.  In 
the  darkness  there  is  recrimination.  One  of  the 
guides,  who  is  summoned,  suggests  that  the  rubber 
blankets  be  passed  out,  and  spread  over  the  roof.  The 
inmates  dislike  the  proposal,  saying  that  a  shower- 
bath  is  no  worse  than  a  tub-bath.  The  rain  continues 
to  soak  down.  The  fire  is  only  half  alive.  The  bed- 
ding is  damp.  Some  sit  up,  if  they  can  find  a  dry 
spot  to  sit  on,  and  smoke.  Heartless  observations  are 
made.  A  few  sleep.  And  the  night  wears  on.  The 
morning  opens  cheerless.  The  sky  is  still  leaking, 
and  so  is  the  shanty.  The  guides  bring  in  a  half- 
cooked  breakfast.  The  roof  is  patched  up.  There 


CAMPING   OUT  87 

are  reviving  signs  of  breaking  away,  delusive  signs 
that  create  momentary  exhilaration.  Even  if  the 
Btorm  clears*  the  woods  are  soaked.  There  is  no 
chance  of  stirring.  The  world  is  only  ten  feet  square. 

This  life,  without  responsibility  or  clean  clothes, 
/nay  continue  as  long  as  the  reader  desires.  There 
are  those  who  would  like  to  live  in  this  free  fashion 
forever,  taking  rain  and  sun  as  heaven  pleases ;  and 
there  are  some  souls  so  constituted  that  they  cannot 
exist  more  than  three  days  without  their  worldly  bag- 
gage. Taking  the  party  altogether,  from  one  cause 
or  another  it  is  likely  to  strike  camp  sooner  than  was 
intended.  And  the  stricken  camp  is  a  melancholy 
sight.  The  woods  have  been  despoiled  ;  the  stumps 
are  ugly ;  the  bushes  are  scorched  ;  the  pine-leaf-strewn 
earth  is  trodden  into  mire ;  the  landing  looks  like  a 
cattle-ford  ;  the  ground  is  littered  with  all  the  un- 
sightly debris  of  a  hand-to-hand  life ;  the  dismantled 
shanty  is  a  shabby  object ;  the  charred  and  blackened 
logs,  where  the  fire  blazed,  suggest  the  extinction  of 
family  life.  Man  has  wrought  his  usual  wrong  upon 
Nature,  and  he  can  save  his  self-respect  only  by  mov- 
ing to  virgin  forests. 

And  move  to  them  he  will,  the  next  season,  if  not 
this.  For  he  who  has  once  experienced  the  fascina- 
tion of  the  woods-life  never  escapes  its  enticement :  in 
the  memory  nothing  remains  but  its  charm. 


A  WILDERNESS  ROMANCE 


AT  the  south  end  of  Keene  Valley,  in  the  Adiron- 
dacks,  stands  Noon  Mark,  a  shapely  peak,  thirty-five 
hundred  feet  above  the  sea,  which,  with  the  aid  of  the 
sun,  tells  the  Keene  people  when  it  is  time  to  eat  din- 
ner. From  its  summit  you  look  south  into  a  vast  wil- 
derness basin,  a  great  stretch  of  forest  little  trodden, 
and  out  of  whose  bosom  you  can  hear  from  the 
heights  on  a  still  day  the  loud  murmur  of  Boquet. 
This  basin  of  unbroken  green  rises  away  to  the  south 
and  south-east  into  the  rocky  heights  of  Dix's  Peak 
and  Nipple  Top,  —  the  latter  a  local  name  which 
neither  the  mountain  nor  the  fastidious  tourist  is  able 
to  shake  off.  Indeed,  so  long  as  the  mountain  keeps 
its  present  shape  as  seen  from  the  southern  lowlands, 
it  cannot  get  on  without  this  name. 

These  two  mountains,  which  belong  to  the  great 
system  of  which  Marcy  is  the  giant  centre,  and  are  in 
the  neighborhood  of  five  thousand  feet  high,  on  the 
southern  outposts  of  the  great  mountains,  form  the 
gate-posts  of  the  pass  into  the  south  country.  This 
opening  between  them  is  called  Hunter's  Pass.  It  is 
the  most  elevated  and  one  of  the  wildest  of  the  moun- 
tain passes.  Its  summit  is  thirty-five  hundred  feet 
high.  In  former  years  it  is  presumed  the  hunters  oc- 
casionally followed  the  game  through  ;  but  latterly  it 
is  rare  to  find  a  guide  who  has  been  that  way,  and  the 


A   WILDERNESS  ROMANCE  89 

tin -can  and  paper-collar  tourists  have  not  yet  made  it 
a  runway.  This  seclusion  is  dua  not  to  any  inherent 
difficulty  of  travel,  but  to  the  fact  that  it  lies  a  little 
out  of  the  way. 

We  went  through  it  last  summer ;  making  our  way 
into  the  jaws  from  the  foot  of  the  great  slides  on  Dix, 
keeping  along  the  ragged  spurs  of  the  mountain 
through  the  virgin  forest.  The  pass  is  narrow,  walled 
in  on  each  side  by  precipices  of  granite,  and  blocked 
up  with  the  bowlders  and  fallen  trees,  and  beset  with 
pitfalls  in  the  roads  ingeniously  covered  with  fair- 
seeming  moss.  When  the  climber  occasionally  loses 
sight  of  a  leg  in  one  of  those  treacherous  holes,  and 
feels  a  cold  sensation  in  his  foot,  he  learns  that  he  has 
dipped  into  the  sources  of  the  Boquet,  which  emerges 
lower  down  into  falls  and  rapids,  and,  recruited  by 
creeping  tributaries,  goes  brawling  through  the  forest 
basin,  and  at  last  comes  out  an  amiable  and  boat-bear- 
ing stream  in  the  valley  of  Elizabeth  Town.  From 
the  summit  another  rivulet  trickles  away  to  the  south, 
and  finds  its  way  through  a  frightful  tamarack  swamp, 
and  through  woods  scarred  by  ruthless  lumbering,  to 
Mud  Pond,  a  quiet  body  of  water,  with  a  ghastly 
fringe  of  dead  trees,  upon  which  people  of  grand  in- 
tentions and  weak  vocabulary  are  trying  to  fix  the 
name  of  Elk  Lake.  The  descent  of  the  pass  on  that 
side  is  precipitous  and  exciting.  The  way  is  in  the 
stream  itself  ;  and  a  considerable  portion  of  the  dis- 
tance we  swung  ourselves  down  the  faces  of  consider- 
able falls,  and  tumbled  down  cascades.  The  descent, 
however,  was  made  easy  by  the  fact  that  it  rained, 
and  every  footstep  was  yielding  and  slippery.  Why 
sane  people,  often  church-members  respectably  con- 
nected, will  subject  themselves  to  this  sort  of  treat* 


90  A    WILDERNESS  ROMANCE 

ment,  —  be  wet  to  the  skra;  bruised  by  the  rocks,  and 
flung  about  among  the  bushes  and  dead  wood  until 
the  most  necessary  part  of  their  apparel  hangs  in 
shreds,  —  is  one  of  the  delightful  mysteries  of  these 
woods.  I  suspect  that  every  man  is  at  heart  a  rov- 
ing animal,  and  likes,  at  intervals,  to  revert  to  the 
condition  of  the  bear  and  the  catamount. 

There  is  no  trail  through  Hunter's  Pass,  which,  as 
I  have  intimated,  is  the  least  frequented  portion  of 
this  wilderness.  Yet  we  were  surprised  to  find  a 
well-beaten  path  a  considerable  portion  of  the  way 
and  wherever  a  path  is  possible.  It  was  not  a  mere 
deer's  runway  :  these  are  found  everywhere  in  the 
mountains.  It  is  trodden  by  other  and  larger  ani- 
mals, and  is,  no  doubt,  the  highway  of  beasts.  It 
bears  marks  of  having  been  so  for  a  long  period,  and 
probably  a  period  long  ago.  Large  animals  are  not 
common  in  these  woods  now,  and  you  seldom  meet 
any  thing  fiercer  than  the  timid  deer  and  the  gentle 
bear.  But  in  days  gone  by  Hunter's  Pass  was  the 
highway  of  the  whole  caravan  of  animals  who  were 
continually  going  backwards  and  forwards,  in  the 
aimless,  roaming  way  that  beasts  have,  between  Mud 
Pond  and  the  Boquet  Basin.  I  think  I  can  see  now 
the  procession  of  them  between  the  heights  of  Dix  and 
Nipple  Top  ;  the  elk  and  the  moose  shambling  along, 
cropping  the  twigs  ;  trie  heavy  bear  lounging  by  with 
his  exploring  nose ;  the  frightened  deer  trembling  at 
every  twig  that  snapped  beneath  his  little  hoofs,  in- 
tent on  the  lily-pads  of  the  pond  ;  the  raccoon  and  the 
hedgehog,  sidling  along  ;  and  the  velvet-footed  pan- 
ther, insouciant  and  conscienceless,  scenting  the  path 
with  a  curious  glow  in  his  eye,  or  crouching  in  an 
overhanging  tree  ready  to  drop  into  the  procession  ak 


A   WILDERNESS  ROMANCE  91 

the  right  moment.  Night  and  day,  year  after  yearv 
I  see  them  going  by,  watched  by  the  red  fox  and  the 
comfortably  clad  sable,  and  grinned  at  by  the  black 
cat,  — the  innocent,  the  vicious,  the  timid  and  the 
savage,  the  shy  and  the  bold,  the  chattering  slanderer 
and  the  screaming  prowler,  the  industrious  and  the 
peaceful,  the  tree-top  critic  and  the  crawling  biter,  — 
just  as  it  is  elsewhere.  It  makes  me  blush  for  my 
species  when  I  think  of  it.  This  charming  society  is 
nearly  extinct  now :  of  the  larger  animals  there  only 
remain  the  bear,  who  minds  his  own  business  more 
thoroughly  than  any  person  I  know,  and  the  deery 
who  would  like  to  be  friendly  with  men,  but  whose 
winning  face  and  gentle  ways  are  no  protection  from 
the  savageness  of  man,  and  who  is  treated  with  the 
same  unpitying  destruction  as  the  snarling  catamount. 
I  have  read  in  history  that  the  amiable  natives  of. 
Hispaniola  fared  no  better  at  the  hands  of  the  brutal 
Spaniards  than  the  fierce  and  warlike  Caribs.  As  so- 
ciety is  at  present  constituted  in  Christian  countries, 
I  would  rather  for  my  own  security  be  a  cougar  than 
a  fawn. 

There  is  not  much  of  romantic  interest  in  the  Adi- 
rondacks.  Out  of  the  books  of  daring  travellers, 
nothing.  I  do  not  know  that  the  Keene  Valley  has 
any  history.  The  mountains  always  stood  here,  and 
the  Ausable,  flowing  now  in  shallows  and  now  in  rip- 
pling reaches  over  the  sands  and  pebble.0,  has  for  ages 
filled  the  air  with  continuous  and  soothing  sounds. 
Before  the  Vermonters  broke  into  it  some  three-quar- 
ters of  a  century  ago,  and  made  meadows  of  its  bot- 
toms and  sugar-camps  of  its  fringing  woods,  I  sup- 
pose the  red  Indian  lived  here  in  his  usual  discom- 
fort, and  was  as  restless  as  his  successors,  the  summer 


92  A    WILDERNESS  ROMANCE 

boarders.  But  the  streams  were  full  of  trout  then, 
and  the  moose  and  the  elk  left  their  broad  tracks  on 
the  sands  of  the  river.  But  of  the  Indian  there  is  no 
trace.  There  is  a  mound  in  the  valley,  much  like 
a  Tel  in  the  country  of  Bashan  beyond  the  Jordan, 
that  may  have  been  built  by  some  prehistoric  race, 
and  may  contain  treasure  and  the  seated  figure  of 
a  preserved  chieftain  on  his  slow  way  to  Paradise. 
What  the  gentle  and  accomplished  race  of  the  Mound- 
Builders  should  want  in  this  savage  region,  where  the 
frost  kills  the  early  potatoes  and  stunts  the  scanty 
oats,  I  do  not  know.  I  have  seen  no  trace  of  them, 
except  this  Tel,  and  one  other  slight  relic,  which  came 
to  light  last  summer,  and  is  not  enough  to  found  the 
history  of  a  race  upon. 

Some  workingmen,  getting  stone  from  the  hillside 
on  one  of  the  little  plateaus  for  a  house-cellar,  discov- 
ered, partly  embedded,  a  piece  of  pottery  unique  in 
this  region.  With  the  unerring  instinct  of  workmen 
in  regard  to  antiquities,  they  thrust  a  crowbar  through 
it,  and  broke  the  bowl  into  several  pieces.  The  joint 
fragments,  however,  give  us  the  form  of  a  dish.  It 
is  a  bowl  about  nine  inches  high  and  eight  inches 
across,  made  of  red  clay,  baked  but  not  glazed.  The 
bottom  is  round,  the  top  flares  into  four  corners,  and 
the  rim  is  rudely  but  rather  artistically  ornamented 
with  criss-cross  scratches  made  when  the  clay  was 
soft.  The  vessel  is  made  of  clay  not  found  about 
here,  and  it  is  one  that  the  Indians  formerly  living 
here  could  not  form.  Was  it  brought  here  by  rov- 
ing Indians  who  may  have  made  an  expedition  to 
the  Ohio  ;  was  it  passed  from  tribe  to  tribe  ;  or  did  it 
belong  to  a  race  that  occupied  the  country  before  the 
Indian,  and  who  have  left  traces  of  their  civilized 
nkill  in  pottery  scattered  all  over  the  continent  ? 


A   WILDERNESS  ROMANCE  93 

If  I  could  establish  the  fact  that  this  jar  was  made 
by  a  prehistoric  race,  we  should  then  have  four  gen- 
erations in  this  lovely  valley :  the  amiable  Prehistoric 
people  (whose  gentle  descendants  were  probably 
killed  by  the  Spaniards  in  the  West  Indies);  the  Red 
Indians  ;  the  Keene  Flaters  (from  Vermont) ;  and 
the  Summer  Boarders,  to  say  nothing  of  the  various 
races  of  animals  who  have  been  unable  to  live  here 
since  the  advent  of  the  Summer  Boarders,  the  valley 
being  not  productive  enough  to  sustain  both.  This 
last  incursion  has  been  more  destructive  to  the  noble 
serenity  of  the  forest  than  all  the  preceding. 

But  we  are  wandering  from  Hunter's  Pass.  The 
western  walls  of  it  are  formed  by  the  precipices  of 
Nipple  Top,  not  so  striking  nor  so  bare  as  the  great 
slides  of  Dix,  which  glisten  in  the  sun  like  silver,  but 
rough  and  repelling,  and  consequently  alluring.  I 
have  a  great  desire  to  scale  them.  I  have  always  had 
an  unreasonable  wish  to  explore  the  rough  summit  of 
this  crabbed  hill,  which  is  too  broken  and  jagged  for 
pleasure,  and  not  high  enough  for  glory.  This  desire 
was  stimulated  by  a  legend  related  by  our  guide  that 
night  in  the  Mud  Pond  cabin.  The  guide  had  never 
been  through  the  pass  before;  although  he  was  famil- 
iar with  the  region,  and  had  ascended  Nipple  Top  in 
the  winter  in  pursuit  of  the  sable.  The  story  he  told 
does  n't  amount  to  much,  —  none  of  the  guides'  stories 
do,  faithfully  reported,  —  and  I  should  not  have  be- 
lieved it  if  I  had  not  had  a  good  deal  of  leisure  on  my 
hands  at  the  time,  and  been  of  a  willing  mind,  and 
I  may  say  in  rather  a  starved  condition  as  to  any 
romance  in  this  region. 

The  guide  said  then  —  and  he  mentioned  it  casu- 
ally, in  reply  to  our  inquiries  about  ascending  the 


94  A   WILDERNESS  ROMANCE 

mountain  —  that  there  was  a  cave  high  up  among  t'ae 
precipices  on  the  southeast  side  of  Nipple  Top.  Be 
scarcely  volunteered  the  information,  and  with  seem- 
ing reluctance  gave  us  any  particulars  about  it.  I 
always  admire  this  art  by  which  the  accomplished 
story-teller  lets  his  listener  drag  the  reluctant  tale  of 
the  marvellous  from  him,  and  makes  you  in  a  manner 
responsible  for  its  improbability.  If  this  is  well-man-* 
aged,  the  listener  is  always  eager  to  believe  a  great 
deal  more  than  the  romancer  seems  willing  to  tell, 
and  always  resents  the  assumed  reservations  and 
doubts  of  the  latter. 

There  were  strange  reports  about  this  cave  when 
the  old  guide  was  a  boy,  and  even  then  its  very  exist- 
ence had  become  legendary.  Nobody  knew  exactly 
where  it  was,  but  there  was  no  doubt  that  it  had  been 
inhabited.  Hunters  in  the  forests  south  of  Dix  had 
seen  a  light  late  at  night  twinkling  through  the  trees 
high  up  the  mountain,  and  now  and  then  a  ruddy  glare 
as  from  the  flaring-up  of  a  furnace.  Settlers  were  few 
in  the  wilderness  then,  and  all  the  inhabitants  were 
well  known.  If  the  cave  was  inhabited,  it  must  be  by 
strangers,  and  by  men  who  had  some  secret  purpose 
in  seeking  this  seclusion  and  eluding  observation.  If 
suspicious  characters  were  seen  about  Port  Henry,  or 
if  any  such  landed  from  the  steamers  on  the  shore  of 
Lake  Champlain,  it  was  impossible  to  identify  them 
with  these  invaders  who  were  never  seen.  Their  not 
being  seen  did  not,  however,  prevent  the  growth  of 
the  belief  in  their  existence.  Little  indications  and 
rumors,  each  trivial  in  itself,  became  a  mass  of  testi- 
mony that  could  not  be  disposed  of  because  of  its 
very  indefiniteness,  but  which  appealed  strongly  to 
man's  noblest  faculty,  his  imagination,  or  credulity. 


A  WILDERNESS  ROMANCE  95 

The  cave  existed ;  and  it  was  inhabited  by  men 
who  came  and  went  on  mysterious  errands,  and  trans- 
acted their  business  by  night.  What  this  band  of 
adventurers  or  desperadoes  lived  on,  how  they  con- 
veyed their  food  through  the  trackless  woods  to  thei' 
high  eyrie,  and  what  could  induce  men  to  seek  sue! 
a  retreat,  were  questions  discussed,  but  never  settled. 
They  might  be  banditti ;  but  there  was  nothing  to 
plunder  in  these  savage  wilds,  and,  in  fact,  robberies 
and  raids,  either  in  the  settlements  of  the  hills  or  the 
distant  lake  shores  were  unknown.  In  another  age, 
these  might  have  been  hermits,  holy  men  who  had 
retired  from  the  world  to  feed  the  vanity  of  their  god- 
liness in  a  spot  where  they  were  subject  neither  tc 
interruption  nor  comparison ;  they  would  have  had 
a  shrine  in  the  cave,  and  an  image  of  the  Blessed  Vir- 
gin, with  a  lamp  always  burning  before  it  and  send- 
ing out  its  mellow  light  over  the  savage  waste.  A 
more  probable  notion  was  that  they  were  romantic 
Frenchmen  who  had  grown  weary  of  vice  and  refine- 
ment together,  —  possibly  princes,  expectants  of  the 
throne,  Bourbon  remainders,  named  Williams  or  oth- 
erwise, unhatched  eggs,  so  to  speak,  of  kings,  who  had 
withdrawn  out  of  observation  to  wait  for  the  next 
turn-over  in  Paris.  Frenchmen  do  such  things.  If 
they  were  not  Frenchmen,  they  might  be  horse-thieves 
or  criminals,  escaped  from  justice  or  fi-om  the  friendly 
state-prison  of  New  York.  This  last  supposition  was, 
however,  more  violent  than  the  others,  or  seems  so  to 
us  in  this  day  of  grace.  For  what  well-brought-up 
New  York  criminal  would  be  so  insane  as  to  run  away 
from  his  political  friends  the  keepers,  from  the  easily- 
had  companionship  of  his  pals  outside,  and  from  the 
society  of  his  criminal  lawyer,  and,  in  short,  to  out 


96  A  WILDERNESS  ROMANCE 

himself  into  the  depths  of  a  wilderness  out  of  which 
escape,  when  escape  was  desired,  is  a  good  deal  more 
difficult  than  it  is  out  of  the  swarming  jails  of  the 
Empire  State  ?  Besides,  how  foolish  for  a  man,  if  he 
were  a  really  hardened  and  professional  criminal,  hav- 
ing established  connections  and  a  'regular  business,  to 
run  away  from  the  governor's  pardon,  which  might 
have  difficulty  in  finding  him  in  the  craggy  bosom  of 
Nipple  Top ! 

This  gang  of  men  —  there  is  some  doubt  whether 
they  were  accompanied  by  women  —  gave  little  evi- 
dence in  their  appearance  of  being  escaped  criminals 
or  expectant  kings.  Their  movements  were  myste- 
rious, but  not  necessarily  violent.  If  their  occupation 
could  have  been  discovered,  that  would  have  furnished 
a  clue  to  their  true  character.  But  about  this  the 
strangers  were  as  close  as  mice.  If  anything  could 
betray  them,  it  was  the  steady  light  from  the  cavern, 
and  its  occasional  ruddy  flashing.  This  gave  rise  to 
the  opinion,  which  was  strengthened  by  a  good  many 
indications  equally  conclusive,  that  the  cave  was  the 
resort  of  a  gang  of  coiners  and  counterfeiters.  Here 
they  had  their  furnace,  smelting-pots,  and  dies ;  here 
they  manufactured  those  spurious  quarters  and  halves 
that  their  confidants,  who  were  pardoned,  were  circu- 
lating, and  which  a  few  honest  men  were  "  nailing  to 
ihe  counter." 

This  prosaic  explanation  of  a  romantic  situation 
satisfies  all  the  requirements  of  the  known  facts,  but 
the  lively  imagination  at  once  rejects  it  as  unworthy 
of  the  subject.  I  think  the  guide  put  it  forward  in 
order  to  have  it  rejected.  The  fact  is,  —  at  least,  it 
has  never  been  disproved,  —  these  strangers  whose 
movements  were  veiled  belonged  to  that  dark  and 


A  WILDERNESS  ROMANCE  97 

mysterious  race  whose  presence  anywhere  on  this  con- 
tinent is  a  nest-egg  of  romance  or  of  terror.  They 
were  Spaniards  !  You  need  not  say  buccaneers,  you 
need  not  say  gold-hunters,  you  need  not  say  swarthy 
Adventurers  even :  it  is  enough  to  say  Spaniards ! 
There  is  no  tale  of  mystery  and  fanaticism  and  daring 
I  would  not  believe  if  a  Spaniard  is  the  hero  of  it, 
Wid  it  is  not  necessary  either  that  he  should  have  the 
irigh-sounding  name  of  Bobadilla  or  Ojeda. 

Nobody,  I  suppose,  would  doubt  this  story,  if  the 
cave  were  in  the  mountains  of  Hispaniola  or  in  the 
Florida  Keys.  But  a  Spaniard  in  the  Adirondacks 
does  seem  misplaced.  Well,  there  would  be  no  ro- 
mance about  it  if  he  were  not  misplaced.  The  Span- 
iard, anywhere  out  of  Spain,  has  always  been  niig- 
placed.  What  could  draw  him  to  this  loggy  and  re- 
mote region?  There  are  two  substances  that  will 
draw  a  Spaniard  from  any  distance  as  certainly  as 
sugar  will  draw  wasps,  —  gold  and  silver.  Does  the 
reader  begin  to  see  light  ?  There  was  a  rumor  that 
silver  existed  in  these  mountains.  I  do  not  know 
where  the  rumor  came  from,  but  it  is  necessary  to 
account  for  the  Spaniards  in  the  cave. 

How  long  these  greedy  Spaniards  occupied  the  cave 
on  Nipple  Top  is  not  known,  nor  how  much  silver 
they  found,  whether  they  found  any,  or  whether  they 
secretly  took  away  all  there  was  in  the  hills.  That 
they  discovered  silver  in  considerable  quantities  is  a 
fair  inference  from  the  length  of  their  residence  in 
this  mountain,  and  the  extreme  care  they  took  to 
guard  their  secret,  and  the  mystery  that  enveloped  all 
their  movements.  What  they  mined,  they  smelted 
in  the  cave  and  carried  off  with  them. 

To  my  imagination  nothing  is  more  impressive  than 


98  A   WILDERNESS  ROMANCE 

the  presence  in  these  savage  wilds  of  these  polished 
foreigners  and  accomplished  metallurgists,  far  from 
the  haunts  of  civilized  man,  leading  a  life  of  luxury 
and  revelry  in  this  almost  inaccessible  cavern.  I  can 
see  them  seated  about  their  roaring  fire,  which  re- 
vealed the  rocky  ribs  of  their  dec  and  sent  a  gleam 
over  the  dark  forest,  eating  venison-pasty  and  cutting 
deep  into  the  juicy  haunch  of  the  moose,  quaffing  deep 
draughts  of  red  wine  from  silver  tankards,  and  then 
throwing  themselves  back  upon  divans,  and  lazily  puff- 
ing the  fragrant  Havana.  After  a  day  of  to?l,  what 
more  natural,  and  what  more  probable  for  a  Spaniard? 
Does  the  reader  think  these  inferences  not  war- 
ranted by  the  facts  ?  He  dpes  not  know  the  facts, 
It  is  true  that  our  guide  had  never  himself  personally 
visited  the  cave,  bu*  he  has  always  intended  to  hunt 
it  up.  His  information  in  regard  to  it  comes  from 
his  father,  who  was  a  mighty  hunter  and  trapper. 
In  one  of  his  expeditions  over  Nipple  Top,  he  chanced 
upon  the  cave.  The  mouth  was  half  concealed  by 
undergrowth.  He  entered,  not  without  some  appre- 
hension engendered  by  the  legends  which  make  it  fa- 
mous. I  think  he  showed  some  boldness  in  venturing 
into  such  a  place  alone.  I  confess,  that,  before  I  went 
in,  I  should  want  to  fire  a  Gatling  gun  into  the  mouth 
for  a  little  while,  in  order  to  rout  out  the  bears  which 
visually  dwell  there.  He  went  in,  however.  The  en- 
trance was  low ;  but  the  cave  was  spacious,  not  large, 
but  big  enough,  with  a  level  floor  and  a  vaulted  ceil- 
ing, It  had  long  been  deserted,  but  that  it  was  once 
the  residence  of  highly  civilized  beings  there  could  be 
no  doubt.  The  dead  brands  in  the  centre  were  the 
remains  of  a  fire  that  could  not  have  been  kindled  by 
wild  beasts,  and  the  bones  scattered  about  had  been 


A   WILDERNESS  ROMANCE  99 

Scientifically  dissected  and  handled.  There  were  also 
remnants  of  furniture  and  pieces  of  garments  scat- 
tered about.  At  the  further  end,  in  a  fissure  of  the 
rock,  were  stones  regularly  built  up,  the  remains  of  a 
larger  fire,  —  and  what  the  hunter  did  not  doubt  was 
the  smelting-furnace  of  the  Spaniards.  He  poked 
about  in  the  ashes,  but  found  no  silver.  That  had 
all  been  carried  away. 

But  what  most  provoked  his  wonder  in  this  rude 
cave  was  a  chair !  This  was  not  such  a  seat  as  a 
woodman  might  knock  up  with  an  axe,  with  a  rough 
body  and  a  seat  of  woven  splits,  but  a  manufactured 
chair  of  commerce,  and  a  chair,  too,  of  an  unusual 
pattern  and  some  elegance.  This  chair  itself  was  a 
mute  witness  of  luxury  and  mystery.  The  chair  it- 
self might  have  been  accounted  for,  though  I  don't 
know  how  :  but  upon  the  back  of  the  chair  hung,  as 
if  the  owner  had  carelessly  flung  it  there  before  going 
out  an  hour  before,  a  man's  waistcoat.  This  waistcoat 
seemed  to  him  of  foreign  make  and  peculiar  style, 
but  what  endeared  it  to  him  was  its  row  of  metal  but- 
tons. These  buttons  were  of  silver !  I  forget  now 
whether  he  did  not  say  they  were  of  silver  coin,  and 
that  the  coin  was  Spanish.  But  I  am  not  certain 
about  this  latter  fact,  and  I  wish  to  cast  no  air  of  im- 
probability over  my  narrative.  This  rich  vestment 
the  hunter  carried  away  with  him.  This  was  all  the 
plunder  his  expedition  afforded.  Yes:  there  was 
one  otber  article,  and,  to  my  mind,  more  significant 
than  the  vest  of  the  hidalgo.  That  was  a  short  and 
stout  crowbar  of  iron  ;  not  one  of  the  long  crowbars 
that  farmers  use  to  pry  up  stones,  but  a  short  handy 
one,  such  as  you  would  use  in  digging  silver-ore  oitf 
r,£  the  cracks  of  rocks. 


100  A   WILDERNESS  ROMANCE 

This  was  the  guide's  simple  story.  I  asked  him 
what  became  of  the  vest  and  buttons,  and  the  bar  of 
iron.  The  old  man  wore  the  vest  until  he  wore  it 
out ;  and  then  he  handed  it  over  to  the  boys,  and  they 
"Wore  it  in  turn  till  they  wore  it  out.  The  buttons 
were  cut  off,  and  kept  as  curiosities.  They  were 
about  the  cabin,  and  the  children  had  them  to  play 
with.  The  guide  distinctly  remembers  playing  with 
them  ;  one  of  them  he  kept  for  a  long  time,  and  he 
did  n't  know  but  he  could  find  it  now,  but  he  guessed 
it  had  disappeared.  I  regretted  that  he  had  not  treas- 
ured this  slender  verification  of  an  interesting  ro- 
mance, but  he  said  in  those  days  he  never  paid  much 
attention  to  such  things.  Lately  he  has  turned  the 
subject  over,  and  is  sorry  that  his  father  wore  out  the 
vest  and  did  not  bring  away  the  chair.  It  is  his 
steady  purpose  to  find  the  cave  some  time  when  he 
has  leisure,  and  capture  the  chair,  if  it  has  not  tum- 
bled to  pieces.  But  about  the  crowbar  ?  Oh  !  that  is 
all  right.  The  guide  has  the  bar  at  his  house  in 
Keene  Valley,  and  has  always  used  it. 

I  am  happy  to  be  able  to  confirm  this  story  by  say- 
ing that  next  day  I  saw  the  crowbar,  and  had  it  in 
my  hand.  It  is  short  and  thick,  and  the  most  inter- 
esting kind  of  crowbar.  This  evidence  is  enough  for 
me.  I  intend  in  the  course  of  this  vacation  to  search 
for  the  cave ;  and,  if  I  find  it,  my  readers  shall  know 
the  truth  about  it,  if  it  destroys  the  only  bit  of  ro- 
•(nance  connected  with  these  mountains. 


MY  readers  were  promised  an  account  o£  Span- 
iard's Cave  on  Nipple-Top  Mountain  in  the  Adiron- 
dacks,  if  such  a  cave  exists,  and  could  be  found. 
There  is  nene  but  negative  evidence  that  this  is  a 
mere  cave  of  the  imagination,  the  void  fancy  of  a  va- 
cant hour ;  but  it  is  the  duty  of  the  historian  to  pre- 
sent the  negative  testimony  of  a  fruitless  expedition 
in  search  of  it,  made  last  summer.  I  beg  leave  to 
offer  this  in  the  simple  language  befitting  all  sincere 
exploits  of  a  geographical  character. 

The  summit  of  Nipple-Top  Mountain  has  been 
trodden  by  few  white  men  of  good  character :  it  is  in 
the  heart  of  a  hirsute  wilderness  ;  it  is  itself  a  rough 
and  unsocial  pile  of  granite  nearly  five  thousand  feet 
high,  bristling  with  a  stunted  and  unpleasant  growth 
of  firs  and  balsams,  and  there  is  no  earthly  reason 
why  a  person  should  go  there.  Therefore  wo  went. 
In  the  party  of  three  there  was,  of  course,  a  chaplain. 
The  guide  was  Old  Mountain  Phelps,  who  had  made 
the  ascent  once  before,  but  not  from  the  northwest 
side,  the  direction  from  which  we  approached  it.  The 
enthusiasm  of  this  philosopher  has  grown  with  his 
years,  and  outlived  his  endurance :  we  carried  our 
own  knapsacks  and  supplies,  therefore,  and  drew  upon 
him  for  nothing  but  moral  reflections  and  a  general 
knowledge  of  the  wilderness.  Our  first  day's  route 


102   WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE  CALL  PLEASURE 

was  through  the  Gill-Brook  woods  and  up  one  of  its 
branches  to  the  head  of  Caribou  Pass,  which  sepa- 
rates Nipple-Top  from  Colvin. 

It  was  about  the  first  of  September ;  no  rain  had 
fallen  for  several  weeks,  and  this  heart  of  the  forest 
was  as  dry  as  tinder ;  a  lighted  match  dropped  aiiy« 
where  would  start  a  conflagration.  This  dryness  has 
its  advantages  :  the  walking  is  improved  ;  the  long 
heat  has  expressed  all  the  spicy  odors  of  the  cedars 
and  balsams,  and  the  woods  are  filled  with  a  soothing 
fragrance ;  the  waters  of  the  streams,  though  scant 
and  clear,  are  cold  as  ice ;  the  common  forest  chill  is 
gone  from  the  air.  The  afternoon  was  bright ;  there 
was  a  feeling  of  exultation  and  adventure  in  stepping 
off  into  the  open  but  pathless  forest ;  the  great  stems 
of  deciduous  trees  were  mottled  with  patches  of  sun- 
light, which  brought  out  upon  the  variegated  barks 
and  mosses  of  the  old  trunks  a  thousand  shifting  hues. 
There  is  nothing  like  a  primeval  wood  for  color  on  a 
sunny  day.  The  shades  of  green  and  brown  are  in- 
finite ;  the  dull  red  of  the  hemlock  bark  glows  in  the 
sun,  the  russet  of  the  changing  moose-bush  becomes 
brilliant ;  there  are  silvery  openings  here  and  there  ; 
and  everywhere  the  columns  rise  up  to  the  canopy  of 
tender  green  which  supports  the  intense  blue  sky  and 
holds  up  a  part  of  it  from  falling  through  in  frag- 
ments to  the  floor  of  the  forest.  Decorators  can  learn 
here  how  Nature  dares  to  put  blue  and  green  in  juxta* 
position :  she  has  evidently  the  secret  of  harmonizing 
all  the  colors. 

The  way,  as  we  ascended,  was  not  all  through  open 
woods  ;  dense  masses  of  firs  were  encountered,  jagged 
spurs  were  to  be  crossed,  and  the  going  became  at 
length  so  slow  and  toilsome  that  we  took  to  the  rocky 


WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE   CALL  PLEASURE  103 

bed  of  a  stream,  where  bowlders  and  flumes  and  cas- 
cades offered  us  sufficient  variety.  The  deeper  we 
penetrated,  the  greater  the  sense  of  savageness  and 
solitude ;  in  the  silence  of  these  hidden  places  one 
seems  to  approach  the  beginning  of  things.  We 
emerged  from  the  defile  into  an  open  basin,  formed 
by  the  curved  side  of  the  mountain,  and  stood  silent 
before  a  waterfall  coming  down  out  of  the  sky  in  the 
centre  of  the  curve.  I  do  not  know  anything  exactly 
like  this  fall,  which  some  poetical  explorer  has  named 
the  Fairy-Ladder  Falls.  It  appears  to  have  a  height 
of  something  like  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet,  and  the 
water  falls  obliquely  across  the  face  of  the  cliff  from 
left  to  right  in  short  steps,  which  in  the  moonlight 
might  seem  like  a  veritable  ladder  for  fairies.  Our 
impression  of  its  height  was  confirmed  by  climbing 
the  very  steep  slope  at  its  side  some  three  or  four 
hundred  feet.  At  the  top  we  found  the  stream  flow- 
ing over  a  broad  Led  of  rock,  like  a  street  in  the  wil- 
derness, slanting  up  still  towards  the  sky,  and  bor- 
dered by  low  firs  and  balsams,  and  bowlders  com- 
pletely covered  with  moss.  It  was  above  the  world 
and  open  to  the  sky. 

On  account  of  the  tindery  condition  of  the  woods 
we  made  our  fire  on  the  natural  pavement,  and  se- 
lected a  smooth  place  for  our  bed  near  by  on  a  flat 
rock,  with  a  pool  of  limpid  water  at  the  foot.  This 
granite  couch  we  covered  with  the  dry  and  springy 
moss,  which  we  stripped  off  in  heavy  fleeces  a  foot 
thick  from  the  bowlders.  First,  however,  we  fed 
upon  the  fruit  that  was  offered  us.  Over  these  hills 
of  moss  ran  an  exquisite  vine  with  a  tiny,  ovate,  green 
leaf,  bearing  small,  delicate  berries,  oblong  and  white 
as  wax,  having  a  faint  flavor  of  wintergreen  and  the 


104   WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE  CALL  PLEA  SUES 

slightest  acid  taste,  the  very  essence  of  the  wilder, 
ness ;  fairy  food,  no  doubt,  and  too  refined  for  pal- 
ates accustomed  to  coarser  viands.  There  must  ex- 
i3t  somewhere  sinless  women  who  could  eat  these  ber- 
ries without  being  reminded  of  the  lost  purity  and 
delicacy  of  the  primeval  senses.  Every  year  I  doubt 
not  this  stainless  berry  ripens  here,  and  is  unplucked 
by  any  knight  of  the  Holy  Grail  who  is  worthy  to  eat 
it,  and  keeps  alive,  in  the  prodigality  of  nature,  the 
tradition  of  the  unperverted  conditions  of  taste  before 
the  fall.  We  ate  these  berries,  I  am  bound  to  say, 
with  a  sense  of  guilty  enjoyment,  as  if  they  had  been 
a  sort  of  shew-bread  of  the  wilderness,  though  I  can- 
not answer  for  the  chaplain,  who  is  by  virtue  of  his 
office  a  little  nearer  to  these  mysteries  of  nature  than 
I.  This  plant  belongs  to  the  heath  family,  and  is  first 
cousin  to  the  blueberry  and  cranberry.  It  is  com- 
monly called  the  creeping  snowberry,  but  I  like  better 
its  official  title  of  chiogenes, —  the  snow-born. 

Our  mossy  resting-place  was  named  the  Bridal 
Chamber  Camp,  in  the  enthusiasm  of  the  hour,  after 
darkness  fell  upon  the  woods  and  the  stars  came  out. 
We  were  two  thousand  five  hundred  feet  above  the 
common  world.  We  lay,  as  it  were,  on  a  shelf  in  the 
sky,  with  a  basin  of  illimitable  forests  below  us  and 
dim  mountain-passes  in  the  far  horizon. 

And  as  we  lay  there  courting  sleep  which  the  blink- 
ing stars  refused  to  shower  down,  our  philosopher  dis- 
coursed to  us  of  the  principle  of  fire,  which  he  holds 
with  the  ancients,  to  be  an  independent  element  that 
comes  and  goes  in  a  mysterious  manner,  as  we  see 
flame  spring  up  and  vanish,  and  is  in  some  way  vital 
and  indestructible,  and  has  a  mysterious  relation  to 
*he  source  of  all  things.  "  That  flame/'  he  says, 


WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE   CALL  PLEASURE    105 

"you  have  put  out,  but  where  has  it  gone?"  We 
could  not  say,  nor  whether  it  is  anything  like  the 
spirit  of  a  man  which  is  here  for  a  little  hour,  and 
then  vanishes  away.  Our  own  philosophy  of  the  cor- 
relation of  forces  found  no  sort  of  favor  at  that  eleva- 
tion, and  we  went  to  sleep  leaving  the  principle  of  fire 
in  the  apostolic  category  of  "  any  other  creature." 

At  daylight  we  were  astir,  and  having  pressed  the 
principle  of  fire  into  our  service  to  make  a  pot  of  tea, 
we  carefully  extinguished  it  or  sent  it  into  another 
place,  and  addressed  ourselves  to  the  climb  of  some- 
thing over  two  thousand  feet.  The  arduous  labor  of 
scaling  an  Alpine  peak  has  a  compensating  glory ; 
but  the  dead  lift  of  our  bodies  up  Nipple-Top  had  no 
stimulus  of  this  sort.  It  is  simply  hard  work,  for 
which  the  strained  muscles  only  get  the  approbation 
of  the  individual  conscience  that  drives  them  to  the 
task.  The  pleasure  of  such  an  ascent  is  difficult  to 
explain  on  the  spot,  and  I  suspect  consists  not  so 
much  in  positive  enjoyment  as  in  the  delight  the 
mind  experiences  in  tyrannizing  over  the  body.  I  do 
not  object  to  the  elevation  of  this  mountain,  nor  to  the 
uncommonly  steep  grade  by  which  it  attains  it,  but 
only  to  the  other  obstacles  thrown  in  the  way  of  the 
climber.  All  the  slopes  of  Nipple-Top  are  hirsute 
and  jagged  to  the  last  degree.  Granite  ledges  inter- 
pose ;  granite  bowlders  seem  to  have  been  dumped 
over  the  sides  with  no  more  attempt  at  arrangement 
than  in  a  rip-rap  wall ;  the  slashes  and  windfalls  of  g 
century  present  here  and  there  an  almost  impenetra- 
ble chevalier  des  arbres  ;  and  the  steep  sides  bristle 
with  a  mass  of  thick  balsams,  with  dead,  protruding 
spikes,  as  unyielding  as  iron  stakes.  The  mountain 
hat;  had  its  own  way  forever,  and  is  as  untamed  as  a 


106  WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE   CALL  PLEASURE 

wolf ;  or  rather  the  elements,  the  frightful  tempests, 
the  frosts,  the  heavy  snows,  the  coaxing  sun,  and  the 
ivalanches  have  had  their  way  with  it  until  its  surface 
is  in  hopeless  confusion.  We  made  our  way  very 
slowly ;  and  it  was  ten  o'clock  before  we  reached  what 
appeared  to  be  the  summit,  a  ridge  deeply  covered 
with  moss,  low  balsams,  and  blueberry  bushes. 

I  say,  appeared  to  be ;  for  we  stood  in  thick  fog  or 
in  the  heart  of  clouds  which  limited  our  dim  view  to  a 
radius  of  twenty  feet.  It  was  a  warm  and  cheerful 
fog,  stirred  by  little  wind,  but  moving,  shifting,  and 
boiling  as  by  its  own  volatile  nature,  rolling  up  black 
from  below  and  dancing  in  silvery  splendor  overhead. 
As  a  fog  it  could  not  have  been  improved  ;  as  a  me- 
dium for  viewing  the  landscape  it  was  a  failure ;  and 
we  lay  down  upon  the  Sybarite  couch  of  moss,  as  in  a 
Russian  bath,  to  await  revelations. 

We  waited  two  hours  without  change,  except  an  oc- 
casional hopeful  lightness  in  the  fog  above,  and  at 
last  the  appearance  for  a  moment  of  the  spectral 
sun.  Only  for  an  instant  was  this  luminous  promise 
vouchsafed.  But  we  watched  in  intense  excitement- 
There  it  was  again  ;  and  this  time  the  fog  was  so 
thin  overhead  that  we  caught  sight  of  a  patch  of  blue 
sky  a  yard  square,  across  which  the  curtain  was  in- 
stantly drawn.  A  little  wind  was  stirring,  and  the 
fog  boiled  up  from  the  valley  caldrons  thicker  than 
ever.  But  the  spell  was  broken.  In  a  moment  more 
Old  Phelps  was  shouting,  "  The  sun  !  "  and  before 
we  could  gain  our  feet  there  was  a  patch  of  sky  over- 
'lead  as  big  as  a  farm.  "  See  !  quick !  "  The  old 
nan  was  dancing  like  a  lunatic.  There  was  z  rift  in 
the  vapor  at  our  feet,  down,  down,  three  thousand  feet 
into  the  forest  abyss,  and  lo !  lifting  out  of  it  yonder 


WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE   CALL  PLEASURE   107 

the  tawny  side  of  Dix,  the  vision  of  a  second, 
snatched  away  in  the  rolling  fog  The  play  had  just 
begun.  Before  we  could  turn,  there  was  the  gorge  of 
Caribou  Pass,  savage  and  dark,  visible  to  the  bottom. 
The  opening  shut  as  suddenly  ,  and  then,  looking 
over  the  clouds,  miles  away  we  saw  the  peaceful  farms 
of  the  Ausable  Valley,  and  in  a  moment  more  the 
plateau  of  North  Elba  and  the  sentinel  mountains 
about  the  grave  of  John  Brown.  These  glimpses 
were  as  fleeting  as  thought,  and  instantly  we  were 
again  isolated  in  the  sea  of  mist.  The  expectation  of 
these  sudden  strokes  of  sublimity  kept  us  exuitingly 
on  the  alert ;  and  yet  it  was  a  blow  of  surprise  when 
the  curtain  was  swiftly  withdrawn  on  the  west,  and 
the  long  ridge  of  Colvin,  seemingly  within  a  stone's 
throw,  heaved  up  like  an  island  out  of  the  ocean,  and 
was  the  next  moment  ingulfed.  We  waited  longer 
for  Dix  to  show  its  shapely  peak  and  its  glistening 
sides  of  rock  gashed  by  avalanches.  The  fantastic 
clouds,  torn  and  streaming,  hurried  up  from  the  south 
in  haste,  as  if  to  a  witch's  rendezvous,  hiding  and  dis- 
closing the  great  summit  in  their  flight.  The  mist 
boiled  up  from  the  valley,  whirled  over  the  summit 
where  we  stood,  and  plunged  again  into  the  depths. 
Objects  were  forming  and  disappearing,  shifting  and 
dancing,  now  in  sun  and  now  gone  in  fog,  and  in  the 
elemental  whirl  we  felt  that  we  were  "  assisting  "  in 
an  original  process  of  creation.  The  sun  strove,  and 
his  very  striving  called  up  new  vapors  ;  the  wind, 
rent  away  the  clouds,  and  brought  new  masses  to 
surge  about  us ;  and  the  spectacles  to  right  and  left, 
above  and  below,  changed  with  incredible  swiftness. 
Such  glory  of  abyss  and  summit,  of  color  and  forni 
and  transformation,,  is  seldom  gi-anted  to  mortal  eyes. 


108  WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE   CALL  PLEASURE 

For  an  hour  we  watched  it  until  our  vast  mountain 
was  revealed  in  all  its  bulk,  its  long  spurs,  its  abysses 
and  its  savagery,  and  the  great  basins  of  wilderness 
with  their  shining  lakes,  and  the  giant  peaks  of  the 
region,  were  one  by  one  disclosed,  and  hidden  and 
again  tranquil  in  the  sunshine. 

Where  was  the  cave  ?  There  was  ample  surface  in 
which  to  look  for  it.  If  we  could  have  flitted  about, 
like  the  hawks  that  came  circling  round,  over  the 
steep  slopes,  the  long  spurs,  the  jagged  precipices,  I 
have  no  doubt  we  should  have  found  it.  But  moving 
about  on  this  mountain  is  not  a  holiday  pastime  ;  and 
we  were  chiefly  anxious  to  discover  a  practicable  mode 
of  descent  into  the  great  wilderness  basin  on  the 
south,  which  we  must  traverse  that  afternoon  before 
reaching  the  hospitable  shanty  on  Mud  Pond.  It  was 
enough  for  us  to  have  discovered  the  general  where- 
abouts of  the  Spanish  Cave,  and  we  left  the  fixing  of 
its  exact  position  to  future  explorers. 

The  spur  we  chose  for  our  escape  looked  smooth  in 
the  distance ;  but  we  found  it  bristling  with  obstruc- 
tions, dead  balsams  set  thickly  together,  slashes  of 
fallen  timber,  and  every  manner  of  woody  chaos  ;  and 
when  at  length  we  swung  and  tumbled  off  the  ledge 
to  the  general  slope,  we  exchanged  only  for  more  dis- 
agreeable going.  The  slope  for  a  couple  of  thousand 
feet  was  steep  enough ;  but  it  was  formed  of  granite 
rocks  all  moss-covered,  so  that  the  footing  could  not 
be  determined,  and  at  short  intervals  we  nearly  went 
out  of  sight  in  holes  under  the  treacherous  carpeting. 
Add  to  this  that  stems  of  great  trees  were  laid  longi- 
tudinally and  transversely  and  criss-cross  over  and 
among  the  rocks,  and  the  reader  can  see  that  a  good 
deal  of  work  needs  to  be  done  to  make  this  a  practi« 
cable  highway  for  anything  but  a  squirrel. 


WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE  CALL  PLEASURE.  109 

.  We  had  had  no  water  since  our  daylight  breakfast ; 
our  lunch  on  the  mountain  had  been  moistened  onlv 

•/ 

by  the  fog.  Our  thirst  began  to  be  that  of  Tantalus, 
because  we  could  hear  the  water  running  deep  down 
among  the  rocks,  but  we  could  not  come  at  it.  The 
imagination  drank  the  living  stream,  and  we  realized 
anew  what  delusive  food  the  imagination  furnishes  in 
an  actual  strait.  A  good  deal  of  the  crime  of  this 
world,  I  am  convinced,  is  the  direct  result  of  the  un- 
licensed play  of  the  imagination  in  adverse  circum- 
stances. This  reflection  had  nothing  to  do  with  our 
actual  situation ;  for  we  added  to  our  imagination 
patience,  and  to  our  patience  long-suffering,  and  prob- 
ably all  the  Christian  virtues  would  have  been  devel- 
oped in  us  if  the  descent  had  been  long  enough. 
Before  we  reached  the  bottom  of  Caribou  Pass,  the 
water  burst  out  from  the  rocks  in  a  clear  stream  that 
was  as  cold  as  ice.  Shortly  after,  we  struck  the  roar- 
ing brook  that  issues  from  the  Pass  to  the  south.  It 
is  a  stream  full  of  character,  not  navigable  even  for 
trout  in  the  upper  part,  but  a  succession  of  falls,  cas- 
cades, flumes,  and  pools,  that  would  delight  an  artist. 
It  is  not  an  easy  bed  for  anything  except  water  to  de- 
scend ;  and  before  we  reached  the  level  reaches,  where 
the  stream  flows  with  a  murmurous  noise  through 
open  woods,  one  of  our  party  began  to  show  signs  of 
exhaustion. 

This  was  Old  Phelps,  whose  appetite  had  failed  the 
day  before,  — his  imagination  being  in  better  working 
Order  than  his  stomach :  he  had  eaten  little  that  day. 
and  his  legs  became  so  groggy  that  he  was  obliged  to 
rest  at  short  intervals.  Here  was  a  situation !  The 
afternoon  was  wearing  away.  We  had  six  or  seven 
miles  of  unknown  wilderness  to  traverse,  a  portion  of 


110  WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE  CALL  PLEASURE 

it  swampy,  in  which  a  progress  of  mure  than  a  mile 
an  hour  is  difficult,  and  the  condition  of  the  guide 
compelled  even  a  slower  march.  What  should  we  do 
in  that  lonesome  solitude  if  the  guide  became  dis- 
abled ?  We  could  n't  carry  him  out ;  could  we  find 
our  own  way  out  to  get  assistance  ?  The  guide  him^ 
self  had  never  been  there  before  ;  and  although  he 
knew  the  general  direction  of  our  point  of  egress,  and 
was  entii'ely  adequate  to  extricate  himself  from  any 
position  in  the  woods,  his  knowledge  was  of  that  occult 
sort  possessed  by  woodsmen  which  it  is  impossible  to 
communicate.  Our  object  was  to  strike  a  trail  that 
led  from  the  Au  Sable  Pond,  the  other  side  of  the 
mountain  range,  to  an  iniet  on  Mud  Pond.  We  knew 
that  if  we  travelled  south  westward  far  enough  we 
must  strike  that  trail,  but  how  far  ?  No  one  could  tell. 
If  we  reached  that  trail,  and  found  a  boat  at  the  inlet, 
there  would  be  only  a  row  of  a  couple  of  miles  to  the 
house  at  the  foot  of  the  lake.  If  no  boat  was  there, 
then  we  must  circle  the  lake  three  or  four  miles  far- 
ther through  a  cedar-swamp,  with  no  trail  in  partic- 
ular. The  prospect  was  not  pleasing.  We  were  short 
of  supplies,  for  we  had  not  expected  to  pass  that 
night  in  the  woods.  The  pleasure  of  the  excursion 
began  to  develop  itself. 

We  stumbled  on  in  the  general  direction  marked 
out,  through  a  forest  that  began  to  seem  endless  as 
hour  after  hour  passed,  compelled  as  we  were  to  make 
long  detours  over  the  ridges  of  the  foot-hills  to  avoid 
the  swamp,  which  sent  out  from  the  border  of  the  lake 
long  tongues  into  the  firm  ground.  The  guide  became 
more  ill  at  every  step,  and  needed  frequent  halts  and 
long  rests.  Food  he  could  not  eat ;  and  tea,  water, 
and  even  brand}',  he  rejected.  Again  and  again  the 


WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE  CALL  PLEASURE    111 

old  philosopher,  enfeebled  by  excessive  exertion  and 
illness,  would  collapse  in  a  heap  on  the  ground,  an 
almost  comical  picture  of  despair,  while  we  stood  and 
waited  the  waning  of  the  day,  and  peered  forward  in. 
vain  for  any  sign  of  an  open  country.  At  every  brook 
we  encountered,  we  suggested  a  halt  for  the  night, 
"while  it  was  still  light  enough  to  select  a  camping - 
place,  but  the  plucky  old  man  would  n't  hear  of  it : 
the  trail  might  be  only  a  quarter  of  a  mile  ahead,  and 
we  crawled  on  again  at  a  snail's  pace.  His  honor  as 
a  guide  seemed  to  be  at  stake  ;  and,  besides,  he  con- 
fessed to  a  notion  that  his  end  was  near,  and  he  did  n't 
want  to  die  like  a  dog  in  the  woods.  And  yet,  if  this 
was  his  last  journey,  it  seemed  not  an  inappropriate 
ending  for  the  old  woodsman  to  lie  down  and  give  up 
the  ghost  in  the  midst  of  the  untamed  forest  and  the 
solemn  silences  he  felt  most  at  home  in.  There  is  a 
popular  theory,  held  by  civilians,  that  a  soldier  likes 
to  die  in  battle.  I  suppose  it  is  as  true  that  a  woods- 
man would  like  to  "  pass  in  his  chips,"  —  the  figure 
seems  to  be  inevitable,  —  struck  down  by  illness  and 
exposure,  in  the  forest  solitude,  with  heaven  in  sight 
and  a  tree- root  for  his  pillow. 

The  guide  seemed  really  to  fear  that,  if  we  did  not 
get  out  of  the  woods  that  night,  he  would  never  go 
out ;  and,  yielding  to  his  dogged  resolution,  we  kept 
on  in  search  of  the  trail,  although  the  gathering  of 
dusk  over  the  ground  warned  us  that  we  might  easily 
cross  the  trail  without  recognizing  it.  We  were  trav 
elling  by  the  light  in  the  upper  sky,  and  by  the  forms 
of  the  tree-stems,  which  every  moment  grew  dimmer. 
At  last  the  end  came.  We  had  just  felt  our  way  over 
what  seemed  to  be  a  little  run  of  water,  when  the  old 
man  sunk  down,  remarking,  "  I  might  as  well  die  here 
as  anywhere,"  and  was  silent. 


Z12  WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE   CALL  PLEASURE 

Suddenly  night  fell  like  a  blanket  on  us.  W« 
Bould  neither  see  the  guide  nor  each  other.  We  be- 
came at  once  conscious  that  miles  of  night  on  all  sides 
shut  us  in.  The  sky  was  clouded  over :  there  was  n't 
a  gleam  of  light  to  show  us  where  to  step.  Our  first 
thought  was  to  build  a  fire,  which  would  drive  back 
the  thick  darkness  into  the  woods,  and  boil  some 
water  for  our  tea.  But  it  was  too  dark  to  use  the  axe. 
We  scraped  together  leaves  and  twigs  to  make  a 
blaze,  and,  as  this  failed,  such  dead  sticks  as  we  could 
find  by  groping  about.  The  fire  was  only  a  tempo- 
rary  affair,  but  it  sufficed  to  boil  a  can  of  water. 
The  water  we  obtained  by  feeling  about  the  stones  of 
the  little  run  for  an  opening  big  enough  to  dip  our 
cup  iii.  The  supper  to  be  prepared  was  fortunately 
simple.  It  consisted  of  a  decoction  of  tea  and  other 
leaves  which  had  got  into  the  pail,  and  a  part  of  a  loaf 
of  bread.  A  loaf  of  bread  which  has  been  carried  in 
a  knapsack  for  a  couple  of  days,  bruised  and  handled 
and  hacked  at  with  a  hunting-knife,  becomes  an  unin- 
teresting object.  But  we  ate  of  it  with  thankfulness, 
washed  it  down  with  hot  fluid,  and  bitterly  thought  of 
the  morrow.  Would  our  old  friend  survive  the 
night?  Would  he  be  in  any  condition  to  travel  in 
the  morning  ?  How  were  we  to  get  out  with  him  or 
without  him? 

The  old  man  lay  silent  in  the  bushes  out  of  sight, 
and  desired  only  to  be  let  alone.  We  fcried  to  tempt 
Jiim  with  the  offer  of  a  piece  of  toast :  it  was  no  temp- 
tation. Tea,  we  thought,  would  revive  him ;  he  re- 
fused it.  A  drink  of  brandy  would  certainly  quicken 
his  life :  he  could  n't  touch  it.  We  were  at  the  end  of 
our  resources.  He  seemed  to  think,  that,  if  he  were 
at  home,  and  could  get  a  bit  of  fried  bacon,  or  a  piece 


WHAT  SOM?  PEOPLE   CALL  PLEASURE  113 

of  pie,  he  should  be  all  right.  We  knew  no  more 
how  to  doctor  him  than  if  he  had  been  a  sick  bear. 
He  withdrew  within  himself,  rolled  himself  up,  so  to 
speak,  in  his  primitive  habits,  and  waited  for  the  heal- 
ing power  of  nature.  Before  our  feeble  fire  disap- 
peared, ws  smoothed  a  level  place  near  it  for  Phelpa 
to  lie  on,  and  got  him  over  to  it.  But  it  did  n't  suit : 
it  was  too  open.  In  fact,  at  the  moment  some  drops 
of  rain  fell.  Rain  was  quite  outside  of  our  pro* 
gramme  for  the  night.  But  the  guide  had  an  instinct 
about  it ;  and,  while  we  were  groping  about  some  yards 
distant  for  a  place  where  we  could  lie  down,  he 
crawled  away  into  the  darkness,  and  curled  himself 
up  amid  the  roots  of  a  gigantic  pine,  very  much  as  a 
bear  would  do,  I  suppose,  with  his  back  against  the 
trunk,  and  there  passed  the  night  comparatively  dry 
and  comfortable  ;  but  of  this  we  knew  nothing  until 
morning,  and  had  to  trust  to  the  assurance  of  a  voice 
out  of  the  darkness  that  he  was  all  right. 

Our  own  bed  where  we  spread  our  blankets  was 
excellent  in  one  respect,  —  there  was  no  danger  of 
tumbling  out  of  it.  At  first  the  rain  pattered  gently 
on  the  leaves  overhead,  and  we  congratulated  ourselves 
on  the  snugness  of  our  situation.  There  was  some- 
thing cheerful  about  this  free  life.  We  contrasted 
our  condition  with  that  of  tired  invalids  who  were 
tossing  on  downy  beds,  and  wooing  sleep  in  vain* 
Nothing  was  so  wholesome  and  invigorating  as  this 
bivouac  in  the  forest.  But,  somehow,  sleep  did  not 
come.  The  rain  had  ceased  to  patter,  and  began  to 
fall  with  a  steady  determination,  a  sort  of  soak,  soak, 
all  about  us.  In  fact,  it  roared  on  the  rubber  blanket, 
and  beat  in  our  faces.  The  wind  began  to  stir  a 
little,  and  there  was  a  moaning  on  high.  Not  con- 


J14  WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE   CALL  PLEASURE 

tented  with  dripping,  the  rain  was  driven  into  our 
faces.  Another  suspicious  circumstance  was  no- 
ticed. Little  rills  of  water  got  established  along 
the  sides  under  the  blankets,  cold,  undeniable 
streams,  that  interfered  with  drowsiness.  Pools 
of  water  settled  on  the  bed ;  and  the  chaplain  had 
3»  habit  of  moving  suddenly,  and  letting  a  quart  or 
iwo  inside,  and  down  my  neck.  It  began  to  be 
evident  that  we  and  our  bed  were  probably  the  wet- 
test objects  in  the  woods.  The  rubber  was  an  excel- 
lent catch-all.  There  was  no  trouble  about  ventila- 
tion, but  we  found  that  we  had  established  our  quar- 
ters without  any  provision  for  drainage.  There  was 
not  exactly  a  wild  tempest  abroad ;  but  there  was  a 
degree  of  liveliness  in  the  thrashing  limbs  and  the 
creaking  of  the  tree-branches  which  rubbed  against 
each  other,  and  the  pouring  rain  increased  in  volume 
and  power  of  penetration.  Sleep  was  quite  out  of  the 
question,  with  so  much  to  distract  our  attention.  In 
fine,  our  misery  became  so  perfect  that  we  both  broke 
cue  into  loud  and  sarcastic  laughter  over  the  absurd* 
ity  of  our  situation.  We  had  subjected  ourselves  to 
all  this  forlornness  simply  for  pleasure.  Whether 
Old  Phelps  was  still  in  existence,  we  could  n't  tell : 
we  could  get  no  response  from  him.  With  daylight, 
if  he  continued  ill  and  could  not  move,  our  situation 
would  be  little  improved.  Our  supplies  were  gone, 
we  lay  in  a  pond,  a  deluge  of  water  was  pouring  down 
on  us.  This  was  summer  recreation.  The  whole 
thing  was  so  excessively  absurd,  that  we  laughed 
again,  louder  than  ever.  We  had  plenty  of  this  sort 
of  amusement. 

Suddenly  through   the  night   we   heard  a  sort  of 
reply  that  started  us  bolt  upright.     This  was  a  pro- 


WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE  CALL  PLEASURE   115 

longed  squawk.  It  was  like  the  voice  of  no  beast  or 
bird  with  which  we  were  familiar.  At  first  it  was 
distant,  but  it  rapidly  approached,  tearing  through  the 
night  and  apparently  through  the  tree-tops,  like  the 
harsh  cry  of  a  web-footed  bird  with  a  snarl  in  it ;  in 
fact,  as  I  said,  a  squawk.  It  came  close  to  us,  and 
then  turned,  and  as  rapidly  as  it  came,  fled  awaj 
through  the  forest,  and  we  lost  the  unearthly  noise  far 
up  the  mountain-slope. 

"  What  was  that,  Phelps  ?  "  we  cried  out.  But  no 
response  came  ;  and  we  wondered  if  his  spirit  had 
been  rent  away,  or  if  some  evil  genius  had  sought  it, 
and  then,  baffled  by  his  serene  and  philosophic  spirit, 
had  shot  off  into  the  void  in  rage  ana  disappointment. 

The  night  had  no  other  adventure.  The  moon  at 
length  coming  up  behind  the  clouds  lent  a  spectral  as- 
pect to  the  forest,  and  deceived  us  for  a  time  into  the 
notion  that  day  was  at  hand ;  but  the  rain  never 
ceased,  and  we  lay  wishful  and  waiting,  with  no  item 
of  solid  misery  wanting  that  we  could  conceive. 

Day  was  slow  a-coming,  and  did  n't  amount  to 
much  when  it  came,  so  heavy  were  the  clouds  ;  but 
the  rain  slackened.  We  crawled  out  of  our  water- 
ciire  "  pack,"  and  sought  the  guide.  To  our  infinite 
relief  he  announced  himself  not  only  alive,  but  in  a 
going  condition.  I  looked  at  my  watch.  It  ha^ 
stopped  at  five  o'clock.  I  poured  the  water  out  of  it, 
and  shook  it :  but,  not  being  constructed  on  the  hy- 
draulic principle,  it  refused  to  go.  Some  hours  later 
we  encountered  a  huntsman,  from  whom  I  procured 
some  gun-grease ;  with  this  I  filled  the  watch,  and 
heated  it  in  by  the  fire.  This  is  the  most  effectual 
way  of  treating  a  delicate  Genevan  timepiece. 

The  light  disclosed  f  ullj  the  suspected  fact  that  our 


116     WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE  CALL  PLEASURE 

bed  had  been  made  in  a  slight  depression :  the  under 
rubber  blanket  spread  in  this  had  prevented  the  rain 
from  soaking  into  the  ground,  and  we  had  been  lying 
in  what  was  in  fact  a  well-contrived  bath-tub.  While 
Old  Phelps  was  pulling  himself  together,  and  W3 
were  wringing  some  gallons  of  water  out  of  our  blan- 
lets,  we  questioned  the  old  man  about  the  "  squawk," 
and  what  bird  was  possessed  of  such  a  voice.  It  was 
not  a  bird  at  all,  he  said,  but  a  cat,  the  black-cat  of 
the  woods,  larger  than  the  domestic  animal,  and  an 
ugly  customer,  who  is  fond  of  fish,  and  carries  a  pelt 
that  is  worth  two  or  three  dollars  in  the  market. 
Occasionally  he  blunders  into  a  sable-trap ;  and  he 
is  altogether  hateful  in  his  ways,  and  has  the  most 
uncultivated  voice  that  is  heard  in  the  woods.  We 
shall  remember  him  as  one  of  the  least  pleasant 
phantoms  of  that  cheerful  night  when  we  lay  in  the 
storm,  fearing  any  moment  the  advent  to  one  of  us  of 
the  grimmest  messenger. 

We  rolled  up  and  shouldered  our  wet  belongings, 
and,  before  the  shades  had  yet  lifted  from  the  satu- 
rated bushes,  pursued  our  march.  It  was  a  relief  to 
be  again  in  motion,  although  our  progress  was  slow, 
and  it  was  a  question  every  rod  whether  the  guide 
could  go  on.  We  had  the  day  before  us  ;  but  if  we 
did  not  find  a  boat  at  the  inlet  a  day  might  not  suffice, 
in  the  weak  condition  of  the  guide,  to  extricate  us 
from  our  ridiculous  position.  There  was  nothing  he- 
roic in  it ;  we  had  no  object ;  it  was  merely,  as  it  must 
appear  by  this  time,  a  pleasure  excursion,  and  we 
might  be  lost  or  perish  in  it  without  reward  and  with 
little  sympathy.  We  had  something  like  an  hour  and 
a  half  of  stumbling  through  the  swamp,  when  sud- 
denly we  stood  in  the  little  trail !  Slight  as  it  was,  it 


WHAT  SOME  PEOPLE  CALL  PLEASURE    117 

Appeared  to  us  a  very  Broadway  of  Paradise,  if  broad 
ways  ever  lead  thither.  Phelps  hailed  it,  and  sank 
down  in  it  like  one  reprieved  from  death.  But  the 
boat  ?  Leaving  him,  we  quickly  ran  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  down  to  the  inlet.  The  boat  was  there.  Our 
•?hout  to  the  guide  would  have  roused  him  out  of  a 
death  slumber.  He  came  down  the  trail  with  the 
agility  of  an  aged  deer  ;  never  was  so  glad  a  sound  In, 
his  ear,  he  said,  as  that  shout.  It  was  in  a  very  jubi- 
lant mood  that  we  emptied  the  boat  of  water,  pushed 
off,  shipped  the  clumsy  oars,  and  bent  to  the  two-mile 
row  through  the  black  waters  of  the  winding,  desolate 
channel,  and  over  the  lake,  whose  dark  waves  were 
tossed  a  little  in  the  morning  breeze.  The  trunks  of 
dead  trees  stand  about  this  lake,  and  all  its  shores  are 
ragged  with  ghastly  drift-wood ;  but  it  was  open  to 
the  sky,  and  although  the  heavy  clouds  still  obscured 
all  the  mountain  ranges  we  had  a  sense  of  escape 
and  freedom  that  almost  made  the  melancholy  scene 
lovely. 

How  lightly  past  hardship  sits  upon  us !  All  the 
misery  of  the  night  vanished,  as  if  it  had  not  been,  in 
the  shelter  of  the  log  cabin  at  Mud  Pond,  with  dry 
clothes  that  fitted  us  as  the  skin  of  the  bear  fits  him  in 
the  spring,  a  noble  breakfast,  a  toasting  fire,  solicitude 
about  our  comfort,  judicious  sympathy  with  our  suffeiv 
ing,  and  willingness  to  hear  the  now  growing  tale  o£ 
our  adventure.  Then  came,  in  a  day  of  absolute  idle- 
ness, while  the  showers  came  and  went,  and  the  moun- 
iains  appeared  and  disappeared  in  sun  and  storm,  that 
perfect  physical  enjoyment  which  consists  in  a  feeling 
of  strength  without  any  inclination  to  use  it,  and  in  a 
delicious  languor  which  is  too  enjoyable  to  be  surren- 
dered to  sleep. 


'74 
HOW  SPKING  CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 

BY    A   READER   OF    "  '93." 


NEW  ENGLAND  is  the  battle-ground  of  the  seasons. 
It  is  La  Vende'e.  To  conquer  it  is  only  to  begin  the 
fight.  When  it  is  completely  subdued,  what  kind  of 
weather  have  you  ?  None  whatever. 

What  is  this  New  England  ?  A  country  ?  No  :  a 
camp.  It  is  alternately  invaded  by  the  hyperborean 
legions  and  by  the  wilting  sirens  of  the  tropics. 
Icicles  hang  always  on  its  northern  heights ;  its  sea- 
coasts  are  fringed  with  mosquitoes.  There  is  for  a 
third  of  the  year  a  contest  between  the  icy  air  of  the 
pole  and  the  warm  wind  of  the  gulf.  The  result  of 
this  is  a  compromise:  the  compromise  is  called  Thaw. 
It  is  the  normal  condition  in  New  England.  The 
New-Englander  is  a  person  who  is  always  just  about 
to  be  warm  and  comfortable.  This  is  the  stuff  of 
which  heroes  and  martyrs  are  made.  A  person  thor- 
oughly heated  or  frozen  is  good  for  nothing.  Look  at 
the  Bongos.  Examine,  on  the  map,  the  Dog-Rib  na- 
tion. The  New-Englander,  by  incessant  activity,  hopes 
to  get  warm.  Edwards  made  his  theology.  Thank 
God,  New  England  is  not  in  Paris ! 

Hudson's  Bay,  Labrador,  Grinnell's  Land,  a  whole 


HOW  SPRING  CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND     119 

gone  of  ice  and  walruses,  make  it  unpleasant  for  New 
England.  This  icy  cover,  like  the  lid  of  a  pot,  is 
always  suspended  over  it :  when  it  shuts  down,  that  is 
winter.  This  would  be  intolerable,  were  it  not  for 
the  Gulf  Stream.  The  Gulf  Stream  is  a  benign, 
liquid  force,  flowing  from  under  the  ribs  of  the  equa- 
tor,—  a  white  knight  of  the  South  going  up  to  battle 
the  giant  of  the  North.  The  two  meet  in  New  Eng- 
land and  have  it  out  there. 

This  is  the  theory ;  but  in  fact,  the  Gulf  Stream  is 
mostly  a  delusion  as  to  New  England.  For  Ireland 
it  is  quite  another  thing.  Potatoes  ripen  in  Ireland 
before  they  are  planted  in  New  England.  That  is 
the  reason  the  Irish  emigrate  :  they  desire  two  crops 
the  same  year.  The  Gulf  Stream  gets  shunted  off 
from  New  England  by  the  formation  of  the  coast 
below :  besides,  it  is  too  shallow  to  be  of  any  service. 
Icebergs  float  down  against  its  surface-current,  and 
fill  all  the  New-England  air  with  the  chill  of  death 
till  June :  after  that  the  fogs  drift  down  from  New- 
foundland. There  never  was  such  a  mockery  as  this 
Gulf  >tream.  It  is  like  the  English  influence  oil 
France,  on  Europe.  Pitt  was  an  iceberg. 

Still  New  England  survives.  To  what  purpose? 
I  say,  as  an  example  :  the  politician  says,  to  produce 
"  Poor  Boys."  Bah  !  The  poor  boy  is  an  anachro- 
nism in  civilization.  He  is  no  longer  poor,  and  he  is 
not  a  boy.  In  Tartary  they  would  hang  him  for 
sucking  all  the  asses'  milk  that  belongs  to  the  chil- 
dren :  in  New  England  he  has  all  the  cream  from  the 
Public  Cow.  What  can  you  expect  in  a  country 
where  one  knows  not  to-day  what  the  weather  will  be 
to-morrow  ?  Climate  makes  the  man.  Suppose  he, 
too,  dwells  on  the  Channel  Islands,  where  he  has  all 


120 

climates,  and  is  superior  to  all.  Perhaps  he  will  be- 
come the  prophet,  the  seer,  of  his  age,  as  he  is  its  Poet. 
The  New-Englancler  is  the  man  without  a  climate. 
Why  is  his  country  recognized  ?  You  won't  find  i*1 
on  any  map  of  Paris. 

And  yet  Paris  is  the  universe.     Strange  anomalj 
The  greater  must  include  the  less ;  but  how  if  the  lesi. 
leaks  out?     This  sometimes  happens. 

And  yet  there  are  phenomena  in  that  country  wortt 
observing.  One  of  them  is  the  conduct  of  Nature 
from  the  1st  of  March  to  the  1st  of  June,  or,  as  some 
say,  from  the  vernal  equinox  to  the  summer  solstice. 
As  Tourmalain  remarked,  "  You  'd  better  observe  the 
unpleasant  than  to  be  blind."  This  was  in  802.  Tour- 
malain  is  dead  ;  so  is  Gross  Alain  ;  so  is  little  Pee- 
Wee :  we  shall  all  be  dead  before  things  get  any 
better. 

That  is  the  law.  Without  revolution  there  is  no- 
thing. What  is  revolution?  It  is  turning  society 
over,  and  putting  the  best  underground  for  a  fertilizer. 
Thus  only  will  things  grow.  What  has  this  to  do  with 
New  England?  In  the  language  of  that  flash  of  social 
lightning,  Bdranger,  "  May  the  Devil  fly  away  with 
me  if  I  can  see  !  " 

Let  us  speak  of  the  period  in  the  year  in  New  Eng- 
land when  winter  appears  to  hesitate.  Except  in  the 
calendar,  the  action  is  ironical ;  but  it  is  still  decep- 
tive. The  sun  mounts  high:  it  is  above  the  horizot 
twelve  hours  at  a  time.  The  snow  gradually  sneaks 
away  in  liquid  repentance.  One  morning  it  is  gone, 
except  in  shaded  spots  and  close  by  the  fences.  From 
about  the  trunks  of  the  trees  it  has  long  departed : 
the  tree  is  a  living  thing,  and  its  growth  repels  it. 
The  fence  is  dead,  driven  into  the  earth  in  a  rigid  line 


HOW  SPRING   CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND     121 

by  man:  the  fence,  in  short,  is  dogma  :  icy  prejudice 
lingers  near  it. 

The  snow  has  disappeared;  but  the  landscape  is  a 
ghastly  sight,  —  bleached,  dead.  The  trees  are  stakes  ; 
the  grass  is  of  no  color ;  and  the  bare  soil  is  not  brovvu 
with  a  healthful  brown  ;  life  has  gone  out  of  it.  Tak^ 
up  a  piece  of  turf:  it  is  a  clod,  without  warmth,  in- 
animate. Pull  it  in  pieces :  there  is  no  hope  in  it :  it 
is  a  part  of  the  past ;  it  is  the  refuse  of  last  year.  This 
is  the  condition  to  which  winter  has  reduced  the  land- 
scape. When  the  snow,  which  was  a  pall,  is  removed> 
you  see  how  ghastly  it  is.  The  face  of  the  country  is 
sodden.  It  needs  now  only  the  soutli  wind  to  sweep 
over  it,  full  of  the  damp  breath  of  death  ;  and  that 
begins  to  blow.  No  prospect  would  be  more  dreary. 

And  yet  the  south  wind  fills  credulous  man  with  joy. 
He  opens  the  window.  He  goes  out,  and  catches  cold. 
He  is  stirred  by  the  mysterious  coming  of  something. 
If  there  is  sign  of  change  nowhere  else,  we  detect  it  in 
the  newspaper.  In  sheltered  corners  of  that  truculent 
instrument  for  the  diffusion  of  the  prejudices  of  the 
few  among  the  many  begin  to  grow  the  violets  of  ten- 
der sentiment,  the  early  greens  of  yearning.  The 
poet  feels  the  sap  of  the  new  year  before  the  marsh- 
willow.  He  blossoms  in  advance  of  the  catkins.  Man 
is  greater  than  Nature.  The  poet  is  greater  than  man  : 
he  is  nature  on  two  legs,  —  ambulatory. 

At  first  there  is  no  appearance  of  conflict.  Tho 
winter  garrison  seems  to  have  withdrawn.  The  invad- 
ing hosts  of  the  South  are  entering  without  opposi- 
tion. The  hard  ground  softens  ;  the  sun  lies  warm 
upon  the  southern  bank,  and  water  oozes  from  its  base. 
If  you  examine  the  buds  of  the  lilac  and  the  flowering 
shrubs,  you  cannot  say  that  they  are  swelling ;  but  the 


122     HOW  SPRING   CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 

varnish  with  which  they  were  coated  in  the  fall  to  keep 
out  the  frost  seems  to  be  cracking.  If  the  sugar-maple 
is  hacked,  it  will  bleed,  —  the  pure  white  blood  of 
Nature. 

At  the  close  of  a  sunny  day  the  western  sky  has  a 
softened  aspect :  its  color,  we  say,  has  warmth  in  it. 
On  such  a  day  you  may  meet  a  caterpillar  on  the  foot* 
path,  and  turn  out  for  him.  The  house-fly  thaws  out ; 
a  company  of  cheerful  wasps  take  possession  of  a 
chamber-window.  It  is  oppressive  indoors  at  night, 
and  the  window  is  raised.  A  flock  of  millers,  born 
out  of  time,  flutter  in.  It  is  most  unusual  weather  for 
the  season :  it  is  so  every  year.  The  delusion  is  com- 
plete, when,  on  a  mild  evening,  the  tree-toads  open 
their  brittle-brattle  chorus  on  the  edge  of  the  pond. 
The  citizen  asks  his  neighbor,  "  Did  you  hear  the 
frogs  last  night  ?  "  That  seems  to  open  the  new  world. 
One  thinks  of  his  childhood  and  its  innocence,  and 
of  his  first  loves.  It  fills  one  with  sentiment  and  a 
tender  longing,  this  voice  of  the  tree-toad.  Man  is  a 
strange  being.  Deaf  to  the  prayers  of  friends,  to  the 
sermons  and  warnings  of  the  church,  to  the  calls  of 
duty,  to  the  pleadings  of  his  better  nature,  he  is 
touched  by  the  tree-toad.  The  signs  of  the  spring 
multiply.  The  passer  in  the  street  in  the  evening  sees 
the  maid-servant  leaning  on  the  area-gate  in  sweet  con- 
verse with  some  one  leaning  on  the  other  side ;  or  in 
the  park,  which  is  still  too  damp  for  anything  but 
true  affection,  he  sees  her  seated  by  the  side  of  one 
who  is  able  to  protect  her  from  the  policeman,  and 
hears  her  si^h,  "  How  sweet  it  is  to  be  with  those  we 

O       ' 

love  to  be  with  !  " 

All  this  is  very  well ;  but  next  morning  the  news- 
paper nips  these  early  buds  of  sentiment.  The  tele- 


HOW  SPRING   CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND     123 

graph  announces,  "  Twenty  feet  of  snow  at  Ogden,  on 
ihe  Pacific  Road ;  winds  blowing  a  gale  at  Omaha, 
and  snow  still  falling  ;  mercury  frozen  at  Duluth ; 
storm-signals  at  Port  Huron." 

Where  now  are  your  tree-toads,  your  young  love, 
your  early  season?  Before  noon  it  rains;  by  three 
o'clock  it  hails  ;  before  night  the  bleak  storm-cloud 
of  the  northwest  envelops  the  sky;  a  gale  is  raging, 
whirling  about  a  tempest  of  snow.  By  morning  the 
snow  is  drifted  in  banks,  and  two  feet  deep  on  a  level. 
Early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  Drebbel  of  Holland 
invented  the  weather-glass.  Before  that,  men  had 
suffered  without  knowing  the  degree  of  their  suffering. 
A  century  later,  Rb'mer  hit  upon  the  idea  of  using 
mercury  in  a  thermometer;  and  Fahrenheit  con- 
structed the  instrument  which  adds  a  new  because 
distinct  terror  to  the  weather.  Science  names  and 
registers  the  ills  of  life ;  and  yet  it  is  a  gain  to  know 
the  names  and  habits  of  our  enemies.  It  is  with  some 
satisfaction  in  our  knowledge  that  we  say  the  ther- 
mometer marks  zero. 

In  fact,  the  wild  beast  called  Winter  untamed  has 
returned,  and  taken  possession  of  New  England.  Na- 
ture, giving  up  her  melting  mood,  has  retired  into 
dumbness  and  white  stagnation.  But  we  are  wise. 
We  say  it  is  better  to  have  it  now  than  later.  We 
have  a  conceit  of  understanding  things. 

Extraordinary  blindness ! 

The  sun  is  in  alliance  with  the  earth.  Between  the 
two  the  snow  is  uncomfortable.  Compelled  to  go,  it 
decides  to  go  suddenly.  The  first  day  there  is  slush 
with  rain  ,  the  second  day,  mud  with  hail ;  the  third 
day,  a  flood  with  sunshine.  The  thermometer  declares 
that  the  temperature  is  delightful.  Man  shivers  and 


124     HOW  SPRING   CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 

sneezes.  His  neighbor  dies  of  some  disease  newly 
named  by  science ;  but  he  dies  all  the  same  as  if  it 
had  n't  been  newly  named.  Science  has  not  discovered 
any  name  that  is  not  fatal. 

This  is  called  the  breaking-up  of  winter. 

Nature  seems  for  some  days  to  be  in  doubt,  not 
exactly  able  to  stand  still,  not  daring  to  put  forth  any- 
thing tender.  Man  says  that  the  worst  is  over.  If  he 
should  live  a  thousand  years,  he  would  be  deceived 
every  year.  And  this  is  called  an  age  of  scepticism. 
Man  never  believed  in  so  many  things  as  now :  he 
never  believed  so  much  in  himself.  As  to  Nature,  he 
knows  her  secrets :  he  can  predict  what  she  will  do. 
He  communicates  with  the  next  world  by  means  of  an 
alphabet  which  he  has  invented.  He  talks  with  souls 
at  the  other  end  of  the  spirit-wire.  To  be  sure,  neither 
of  them  says  anything ;  but  they  talk.  Is  not  that 
something?  He  suspends  the  law  of  gravitation  as  to 
his  own  body  —  he  has  learned  how  to  evade  it  —  as 
tyrants  suspend  the  legal  writs  of  habeas  corpus. 
When  Gravitation  asks  for  his  body,  she  cannot  have 
it.  He  says  of  himself,  "  I  am  infallible  ;  I  am  sub- 
lime." He  believes  all  these  things.  He  is  master  of 
the  elements.  Shakspeare  sends  him  a  poem  just 
made,  and  as  good  a  poem  as  the  man  could  write 
himself.  And  yet  this  man  —  he  goes  out  of  doors 
without  his  overcoat,  catches  cold,  and  is  buried  in 
three  days.  "  On  the  21st  of  January,"  exclaimed 
Mercier,  "  all  kings  felt  for  the  backs  of  their  necks." 
This  might  be  said  of  all  men  in  New  England  in  the 
spring.  This  is  the  season  that  all  the  poets  celebrate. 
Let  us  suppose  that  once,  in  Thessaly,  there  was  a 
genial  spring,  and  there  was  a  poet  who  sang  of  it. 
All  later  poets  have  sung  the  same  song.  "  Voila 
tout !  "  That  is  the  root  of  poetry. 


HOW  SPRING  CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND     125 

Another  delusion.  We  hear  toward  evening,  high 
in  air,  the  "conk"  of  the  wild-geese.  Looking 
up,  you  see  the  black  specks  of  that  adventurous  tri- 
angle, winging  along  in  rapid  flight  northward.  Per- 
haps it  takes  a  wide  returning  sweep,  in  doubt ;  but 
it  disappears  in  the  north.  There  is  no  mistaking 
^hat  sign.  This  unmusical  "  conk  "  is  sweeter  than 
the  "  kerchunk "  of  the  bull-frog.  Probably  these 
birds  are  not  idiots,  and  probably  they  turned  back 
south  again  after  spying  out  the  nakedness  of  the 
land  ;  but  they  have  made  their  sign.  Next  day  there 
is  a  rumor  that  somebody  has  seen  a  blue-bird.  This 
rumor,  unhappily  for  the  bird,  which  will  freeze  to 
death,  is  confirmed.  In  less  than  three  days  every- 
body has  seen  a  blue-bird  ;  and  favored  people  have 
heard  a  robin,  or  rather  the  yellow-breasted  thrush, 
misnamed  a  robin  in  America.  This  is  no  doubt 
true :  for  angle-worms  have  been  seen  on  the  surface 
of  the  ground  ;  and,  wherever  there  is  anything  to  eat, 
the  robin  is  promptly  on  hand.  About  this  time  you 
notice,  in  protected,  sunny  spots,  that  the  grass  has  a 
little  color.  But  you  say  that  it  is  the  grass  of  last 
fall.  It  is  very  difficult  to  tell  when  the  grass  of  last 
fall  became  the  grass  of  this  spring.  It  looks  "  warmed 
over."  The  green  is  rusty.  The  lilac-buds  have  cer- 
tainly swollen  a  little,  and  so  have  those  of  the  soft 
maple.  In  the  rain  the  grass  does  not  brighten  as 
you  think  it  ought  to,  and  it  is  only  when  the  rai» 
turns  to  snow  that  you  see  any  decided  green  color  by 
contrast  with  the  white.  The  snow  gradually  covers 
everything  very  quietly,  however.  Winter  cornes 
back  without  the  least  noise  or  bustle,  tireless,  mali- 
cious, implacable.  Neither  party  in  the  fight  now 
makes  much  fuss  over  it;  and  you  might  think  that 


126     HOW  SPRING  CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 

Nature  had  surrendered  altogether,  if  you  did  not  find 
about  this  time  in  the  woods,  on  the  edge  of  a  snow- 
bank, the  modest  blossoms  of  the  trailing  arbutus, 
ahedding  their  delicious  perfume.  The  bravest  are 
always  the  tenderest,  says  the  poet.  The  season,  in 
its  blind  way,  is  trying  to  express  itself. 

And  it  is  assisted.  There  is  a  cheerful  chatter  in 
the  trees.  The  blackbirds  have  come,  and  in  numbers, 
households  of  them,  villages  of  them,  —  communes, 
rather.  They  do  not  believe  in  God,  these  black- 
birds. They  think  they  can  take  care  of  themselves. 
We  shall  see.  But  they  are  well  informed.  They 
arrived  just  as  the  last  snow-bank  melted.  One  can- 
liot  say  now  that  there  is  not  greenness  in  the  grass ; 
not  in  the  wide  fields,  to  be  sure,  but  on  lawns  and 
banks  sloping  south.  The  dark-spotted  leaves  of 
the  dog-tooth  violet  begin  to  show.  Even  Fahrenheit's 
contrivance  joins  in  the  upward  movement :  the  mer- 
cury has  suddenly  gone  up  from  thirty  degrees  to 
sixty-five  degrees.  It  is  time  for  the  ice-man.  Ice 
has  no  sooner  disappeared  than  we  desire  it. 

There  is  a  smile,  if  one  ma}'  say  so,  in  the  blue  sky, 
and  there  is  softness  in  the  south  wind.  The  song- 
sparrow  is  singing  in  the  apple-tree.  Another  bird- 
note  is  heard,  —  two  long,  musical  whistles,  liquid  but 
metallic.  A  brown  bird  this  one,  darker  than  the 
song-sparrow,  and  without  the  latter's  light  stripes, 
and  smaller,  yet  bigger  than  the  queer  little  chipping- 
bird.  He  wants  a  familiar  name,  this  sweet  singer, 
who  appears  to  be  a  sort  of  sparrow.  He  is  such  a 
contrast  to  the  blue-jays,  who  have  arrived  in  a  pas- 
sion, as  usual,  screaming  and  scolding,  the  elegant, 
spoiled  beauties  !  They  wrangle  from  morning  till 
night,  these  beautiful,  high-tempered  aristocrats. 


HOW  SPRING  CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND     127 

Encouraged  \>y  the  birds,  by  the  bursting  of  the 
lilac-buds,  by  the  peeping-up  of  the  crocuses,  by  tradi- 
tion, by  the  sweet  flutterings  of  a  double  hope,  another 
sign  appears.  This  is  the  Easter  bonnets,  most  de- 
lightful flowers  of  the  year,  emblems  of  innocence, 
hope,  devotion.  Alas  that  they  have  to  be  worn  under 
umbrellas,  so  much  thought,  freshness,  feeling,  ten- 
derness, have  gone  into  them !  And  a  northeast 
storm  of  rain,  accompanied  with  hail,  comes  to  crown 
all  these  virtues  with  that  of  self-sacrifice.  The  frail 
hat  is  offered  up  to  the  implacable  season.  In  fact, 
Nature  is  not  to  be  forestalled  nor  hurried  in  this  way. 
Things  cannot  be  pushed.  Nature  hesitates.  The 
woman  who  does  not  hesitate  in  April  is  lost.  The 
appearance  of  the  bonnets  is  premature.  The  black- 
birds see  it.  They  assemble.  For  two  days  they 
hold  a  noisy  convention,  with  high  debate,  in  the  tree- 
tops.  Something  is  going  to  happen. 

Say,  rather,  the  usual  thing  is  about  to  occur. 
There  is  a  wind  called  Auster,  another  called  Eurus, 
another  called  Septentrio,  another  Meridies,  besides 
Aquilo,  Vulturnus,  Africus.  There  are  the  eight 
great  winds  of  the  classical  dictionary,  —  arsenal  of 
mystery  and  terror  and  of  the  unknown,  —  besides 
the  wind  Euroaquilo  of  St.  Luke.  This  is  the  wind 
that  drives  an  apostle  wishing  to  gain  Crete  upon  the 
African  Syrtis.  If  St-  Luke  had  been  tacking  to  get 
to  Hyannis,  this  wind  would  have  forced  him  into 
Holmes's  Hole.  The  Euroaquilo  is  no  respecter  of 
persons. 

These  winds,  and  others  unnamed  and  more  terrible, 
circle  about  New  England.  They  form  a  ring  about 
it :  they  lie  in  wait  on  its  borders,  but  only  to  spring 
upon  it  and  harry  it.  They  follow  each  other  in  con- 


128     HOW  SPRING  vAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 

tracting  circles,  in  whirlwinds,  in  maelstroms  of  the 
atmosphere :  they  meet  and  cross  each  other,  all  at  a 
moment.  This  New  England  is  set  apart :  it  is  the  ex- 
ercise-ground of  the  weather.  Storms  bred  elsewhere 
come  here  full-grown :  they  come  in  couples,  in  quar- 
tets, in  choruses.  If  New  England  were  not  mostly 
rock,  these  winds  would  carry  it  off ;  but  they  would 
bring  it  all  back  again,  as  happens  with  the  sandy 
portions.  What  sharp  Eurus  carries  to  Jersey,  Af  ricus 
brings  back.  When  the  air  is  not  full  of  snow,  it  is 
full  of  dust.  This  is  called  one  of  the  compensations 
of  Nature. 

This  is  what  happened  after  the  convention  of  the 
blackbirds  :  A  moaning  south  wind  brought  rain  ;  a 
southwest  wind  turned  the  rain  to  snow  ;  what  is 
called  a  zephyr,  out  of  the  west,  drifted  the  snow ;  a 
north  wind  sent  the  mercury  far  below  freezing.  Salt 
added  to  snow  increases  the  evaporation  and  the  cold. 
This  was  the  office  of  the  northeast  wind :  it  made  the 
snow  damp,  and  increased  its  bulk ;  but  then  it  rained 
a  little,  and  froze,  thawing  at  the  same  time.  The  air 
was  full  of  fog  and  snow  and  rain.  And  then  the 
wind  changed,  went  back  round  the  circle,  reversing 
everything,  like  dragging  a  cat  by  its  tail.  The  mer- 
cury approached  zero.  This  was  nothing  uncommon. 
We  know  all  these  winds.  We  are  familiar  with  the 
different  "  forms  of  water." 

All  this  was  only  the  prologue,  the  overture.  If 
ono  might  be  permitted  to  speak  scientifically,  it  was 
only  the  tuning  of  the  instruments.  The  opera  was 
to  come,  —  the  Flying  Dutchman  of  the  air. 

There  is  a  wind  called  Euroclydon  :  it  would  be  one 
of  the  Eumenides  ;  only  they  are  women.  It  is  half- 
brother  to  the  gigantic  storm-wind  of  the  equinox 


HOW  SPRING  CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND     129 

The  Euroclydon  is  not  a  wind  :  it  is  a  monster.  Its 
breath  is  frost.  It  has  snow  in  its  hair.  It  is  some- 
thing terrible.  It  peddles  rheumatism,  and  plants 
consumption. 

The  Euroclydon  knew  just  the  moment  to  strike  into 
the  discord  of  the  weather  in  New  England.  From 
its  lair  about  Point  Desolation,  from  the  glaciers  of 
the  Greenland  continent,  sweeping  round  the  coast, 
leaving  wrecks  in  its  track,  it  marched  right  athwart 
the  other  conflicting  winds,  churning  them  into  a  fury, 
and  inaugurating  chaos.  It  was  the  Marat  of  the 
elements.  It  was  the  revolution  marching  into  the 
"dreaded  wood  of  La  Sandraie." 

Let  us  sum  it  all  up  in  one  word  :  it  was  something 
for  which  there  is  no  name. 

Its  track  was  destruction.  On  the  sea  it  leaves 
wrecks.  What  does  it  leave  on  land  ?  Funerals. 
When  it  subsides,  New  England  is  prostrate.  It  has 
left  its  legacy  :  this  legacy  is  coughs  and  patent  medi- 
cines. This  is  an  epic  ;  this  is  destiny.  You  think 
Providence  is  expelled  out  of  New  England  ?  Listen  ! 

Two  days  after  Euroclydon,  I  found  in  the  woods 
the  hepatica  —  earliest  of  wildwood  flowers,  evidently 
not  intimidated  by  the  wild  work  of  the  armies  tram- 
pling over  New  England  —  daring  to  hold  up  its  ten- 
der blossom.  One  could  not  but  admire  the  quiet 
pertinacity  of  Nature.  She  had  been  painting  the 
grass  under  the  snow.  In  spots  it  was  vivid  green. 
There  was  a  mild  rain,  —  mild,  but  chilly.  The 
clouds  gathered,  and  broke  away  in  light,  fleecy  masses. 
There  was  a  softness  on  the  hills.  The  birds  suddenly 
were  on  every  tree,  glancing  through  the  air,  filling  it 
with  song,  sometimes  shaking  rain-drops  from  their 
wings.  The  cat  brings  in  one  in  his  mouth.  He 


130     HOW  SPRING  CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 

thinks  the  season  has  begun,  and  the  game-laws  are 
off.  He  is  fond  of  Nature,  this  cat,  as  we  all  are : 
he  wants  to  possess  it.  At  four  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing there  is  a  grand  dress-rehearsal  of  the  birds.  Not 
all  the  pieces  of  the  orchestra  have  arrived  ;  but  there 
are  enough.  The  grass-sparrow  has  come.  This  is 
certainly  charming.  The  gardener  comes  to  talk 
about  seeds :  he  uncovers  the  strawberries  and  the 
grape-vines,  salts  the  asparagus-bed,  and  plants  the 
peas.  You  ask  if  he  planted  them  with  a  shot-gun. 
In  the  shade  there  is  still  frost  in  the  ground.  Na- 
ture, in  fact,  still  hesitates,  puts  forth  one  hepatica  at 
a  time,  and  waits  to  see  the  result;  pushes  up  the 
grass  slowly,  perhaps  draws  it  in  at  night. 

This  indecision  we  call  Spring. 

It  becomes  painful.  It  is  like  being  on  the  rack 
for  ninety  days,  expecting  every  day  a  reprieve.  Men 
grow  hardened  to  it,  however. 

This  is  the  order  with  man,  —  hope,  surprise,  be- 
wilderment, disgust,  facetiousness.  The  people  in 
New  England  finally  become  facetious  about  spring. 
This  is  the  last  stage  :  it  is  the  most  dangerous.  When 
a  man  has  come  to  make  a  jest  of  misfortune,  he  is 
lost.  "It  bores  me  to  die,"  said  the  journalist  Carra 
to  the  headsman  at  the  foot  of  the  guillotine :  "  I 
would  like  to  have  seen  the  continuation."  One  is 
also  interested  to  see  how  spring  is  going  to  turn  out. 

A  day  of  sun,  of  delusive  bird-singing,  sight  of  the 
mellow  earth, — all  these  begin  to  beget  confidence. 
The  night,  even,  has  been  warm.  But  what  is  this  in 
the  morning  journal  at  breakfast? —  "  An  area  of  low 
pressure  is  moving  from  the  Tortugas  north."  You 
shudder. 

What  is  this  Low  Pressure  itself,  —  it  ?    It  is  some- 


HOW  SPRING  CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND     131 

thing  frightful,  low,  crouching,  creeping,  advancing; 
it  is  a  foreboding  ;  it  is  misfortune  by  telegraph  ;  it  is 
the  "  '93  "  of  the  atmosphere. 

This  low  pressure  is  a  creation  of  Old  Prob.  What 
is  that?  Old  Prob.  is  the  new  deity  of  the  Ameri- 
cans, greater  than  ^Eolus,  more  despotic  than  Sans- 
Culotte.  The  wind  is  his  servitor,  the  lightning  hi. 
messenger.  lie  is  a  mystery  made  of  six  parts  elec- 
tricity, and  one  part  "guess."  This  deity  is  wor- 
shipped by  the  Americans;  his  name  is  on  every 
man's  lips  first  in  the  morning ;  he  is  the  Franken- 
stein of  modern  science.  Housed  at  Washington,  his 
business  is  to  direct  the  storms  of  the  whole  country 
upon  New  England,  and  to  give  notice  in  advance. 
This  he  does.  Sometimes  he  sends  the  storm,  and 
then  gives  notice.  This  is  mere  playfulness  on  his 
part :  it  is  all  one  to  him.  His  great  power  is  in  the 
low  pressure. 

On  the  Bexar  plains  of  Texas,  among  the  hills  of 
the  Presidio,  along  the  Rio  Grande,  low  pressure  is 
bred  ;  it  is  nursed  also  in  the  Atchafalaya  swamps  of 
Louisiana ;  it  moves  by  the  way  of  Thibodeaux  and 
Bonnet  Carre.  The  southwest  is  a  magazine  of 
atmospheric  disasters.  Low  pressure  may  be  no  worse 
than  the  others :  it  is  better  known,  and  is  most  used 
to  inspire  terror.  It  can  be  summoned  any  time  also 
from  the  everglades  of  Florida,  from  the  morasses  of 
the  Okeechobee. 

When  the  New-Englander  sees  this  in  his  newspa- 
per, he  knows  what  it  means.  He  has  twenty-four 
hours'  warning ;  but  what  can  he  do  ?  Nothing  but 
watch  its  certain  advance  by  telegraph.  lie  suffers 
in  anticipation.  That  is  what  Old  Prob.  has  brought 
about,  —  suffering  by  anticipation.  This  low  pressure 


132     HOW  SPRING  CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 

advances  against  the  wind.  The  wind  is  from  the 
northeast.  Nothing  could  be  more  unpleasant  than 
a  northeast  wind  ?  Wait  till  low  pressure  joins  it. 
Together  they  make  spring  in  New  England.  A 
northeast  storm  from  the  southwest !  —  there  is  no 
bitterer  satire  than  this.  It  lasts  three  days.  After 
that  the  weather  changes  into  something  winter-like. 

A  solitary  song-sparrow,  without  a  note  of  joy,  hops 
along  the  snow  to  the  dining-room  window,  and,  turn- 
ing his  little  head  aside,  looks  up.  He  is  hungry  and 
cold.  Little  Minnette,  clasping  her  hands  behind  her 
back,  stands  and  looks  at  him,  and  says,  "  Po'  birdie ! " 
They  appear  to  understand  each  other.  The  sparrow 
gets  his  crumbs ;  but  he  knows  too  much  to  let  Minn- 
ette get  hold  of  him.  Neither  of  these  little  things 
could  take  care  of  itself  in  a  New-England  spring  — 
not  in  the  depths  of  it.  This  is  what  the  father  of 
Minnette,  looking  out  of  the  window  upon  the  wide 
waste  of  snow,  and  the  evergreens  bent  to  the  ground 
with  the  weight  of  it,  says :  "  It  looks  like  the  depths 
of  spring."  To  this  has  man  come :  to  his  facetious- 
ness  has  succeeded  sarcasm.  It  is  the  first  of  May. 

Then  follows  a  day  of  bright  sun  and  blue  sky. 
The  birds  open  the  morning  with  a  lively  chorus.  In 
spite  of  Auster,  Euroclydon,  low  pressure  and  the 
government  bureau,  things  have  gone  forward.  By 
the  roadside,  where  the  snow  has  just  melted,  the 
grass  is  of  the  color  of  emerald.  The  heart  leaps  to 
see  it.  On  the  lawn  there  are  twenty  robins,  lively, 
noisy,  worm-seeking.  Their  yellow  breasts  contrast 
with  the  tender  green  of  the  newly-springing  clover 
and  herd's-grass.  If  they  would  only  stand  still,  we 
might  think  the  dandelions  had  blossomed.  On  an 
evergreen-bough,  looting  at  them,  sits  a  graceful  bird, 


whose  back  is  bluer  than  the  sky.  There  is  a  red  tint 
on  the  tips  of  the  boughs  of  the  hard  maple.  With 
Nature,  color  is  life.  See,  already,  green,  yellow, 
blue,  red  !  In  a  few  days  —  is  it  not  so  ?  —  through 
the  green  masses  of  the  trees  will  flash  the  orange 
of  the  oriole,  the  scarlet  of  the  tanager ;  perhaps  to- 
morrow. 

But,  in  fact,  the  next  day  opens  a  little  sourly.  It 
is  almost  clear  overhead :  but  the  clouds  thicken  on 
the  horizon ;  they  look  leaden ;  they  threaten  rain« 
It  certainly  will  rain  :  the  air  feels  like  rain  or  snow. 
By  noon  it  begins  to  snow,  and  you  hear  the  desolate 
cry  of  the  phoebe-bird.  It  is  a  fine  snow,  gentle  at 
first;  but  it  soon  drives  in  swerving  lines,  for  the 
wind  is  from  the  southwest,  from  the  west,  from  the 
northeast,  from  the  zenith  (one  of  the  ordinary  winds 
of  New  England),  from  all  points  of  the  compass. 
The  fine  snow  becomes  rain ;  it  becomes  large  snow ; 
it  melts  as  it  falls ;  it  freezes  as  it  falls.  At  last  a 
storm  sets  in,  and  night  shuts  down  upon  the  bleak 
scene. 

During  the  night  there  is  a  change.  It  thunders 
and  lightens.  Toward  morning  there  is  a  brilliant 
display  of  aurora  borealis.  This  is  a  sign  of  colder 
weather. 

The  gardener  is  in  despair  ;  so  is  the  sportsman. 
Che  trout  take  no  pleasure  in  biting  in  such  weather. 
Paragraphs  appear  in  the  newspapers,  copied  from 
the  paper  of  last  year,  saying  that  this  is  the  most 
severe  spring  in  thirty  years.  Every  one,  in  fact, 
believes  that  it  is,  and  also  that  next  year  the  spring 
will  be  early.  Man  is  the  most  gullible  of  creatures. 

And  with  reason  :  he  trusts  his  eyes,  and  not  his 
instinct.  During  this  most  sour  weather  of  the  year, 


134     HOW  SPRING  CAME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  anemone  blossoms ;  and,  almost  immediately  after, 
the  fairy  pencil,  the  spring  beauty,  the  dog-tooth  vio- 
let, and  the  true  violet.  In  clouds  and  fog,  and  rain 
and  snow,  and  all  discouragement,  Nature  pushes  on 
her  forces  with  progressive  haste  and  rapidity.  Before 
one  is  aware,  all  the  lawns  and  meadows  are  deeply 
green,  the  trees  are  opening  their  tender  leaves.  In  a 
burst  of  sunshine  the  cherry-trees  are  white,  the  Judas- 
tree  is  pink,  the  hawthorns  give  a  sweet  smell.  The 
air  is  full  of  sweetness ;  the  world,  of  color. 

In  the  midst  of  a  chilling  northeast  storm  the 
ground  is  strewed  with  the  white-and-pink  blossoms 
from  the  apple-trees.  The  next  day  the  mercury 
stands  at  eighty  degrees.  Summer  has  come. 

There  was  no  Spring. 

The  winter  is  over.  You  think  so?  Robespierre 
thought  the  Revolution  was  over  in  the  beginning  of 
his  last  Thermidor.  He  lost  his  head  after  that. 

When  the  first  buds  are  set,  and  the  corn  is  up,  and 
the  cucumbers  have  four  leaves,  a  malicious  frost  steals 
down  from  the  north  and  kills  them  in  a  night. 

That  is  the  last  effort  of  spring.  The  mercury  then 
mounts  to  ninety  degrees.  The  season  has  been  long, 
but,  on  the  whole,  successful.  Many  people  survive  ifc 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


?! 


MAY  s    1933 

JljN  1  3  1933 
IJAN     3  193* 


!   24 

MAR  9      1943 


AUG  31985 


SPP 


Form  L-9-15m-7,'31 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


3  115801051  1581 


A    001  370  808    6 


V  or 


